


Mutable Scars

by oooknuk



Series: Mutable Scars [1]
Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: Gen, Rape, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2017-07-05
Packaged: 2018-11-23 15:35:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 29,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11405370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oooknuk/pseuds/oooknuk
Summary: With Maureen LycaonCassandra finds revenge is not sweet





	Mutable Scars

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS: Whoa! Nasty shit. Rape. Torture. In buckets. Also, a non-bitchy Cassandra. Pre-Slash (D/M). No voluntary sex. Not for the faint-hearted, okay?

Footsteps sounded in the corridor outside, accompanied by the sound of something sliding along the floor. The door of the adjoining cell opened, and Michel threw in a bruised, welted, bloodied body as if it were a sack of garbage. It struck the floor with a heavy thump.

He wasn't content to let the apparent corpse rest, but chained it by the collar to one of the numerous rings in the wall, pulling the bound hands cruelly up behind the shoulders and clipping their chain to the collar. 

A faint buzz in her head began to build. The corpse was that of an Immortal, already beginning to revive. But she already knew that. She knew the face of the person in the other cell as well as her own. 

"Methos," she heard herself say in an almost-whisper, experiencing a moment of unreality. 

Michel looked over at her and grinned maliciously. She was sure that he would come into her cell and exact his usual toll, but he merely turned away, checking that Methos' bonds were secure, before carding open the cell door and leaving, letting it lock automatically behind him. She heard him walking away. 

She crept back into the far corner of her own cell, even though it moved her all of six feet away from her loathed former captor, now jerking in resurrection. She didn't speak as he groggily shook his head, blinking and trying to work out where he was, mapping his surroundings. 

Her Presence drew his attention as soon as he was able to lift his head. "Cassandra?" His voice wasn't as strong as she remembered it. 

She refused to answer. Laboriously, he rolled onto his face and got his knees under himself, seeming too weak to get to his feet. He shuffled on his knees over to the strong but fine grill separating their cells, wincing as if he had still-unhealed injuries. The chain stopped him getting very far, so he knelt and looked at the barrier. His bony, unshaven face showed anxiety and exhaustion, but otherwise she couldn't read it. What had they done to him? _And why should I care_ , she thought angrily. 

"Cassandra?" he asked uncertainly. "He said he had you. Are you all right?" 

"I'm fine," she said coldly. Damned if he was going to hear from _her_ about the boredom, the rapes, the lack of warmth or anywhere to sleep but the hard cement floor, the worry, the semi-starvation or anything else.

He merely nodded. "Good." He swallowed, as if uneasy at speaking to her. 

Even that much conversation revolted her. She wished there were somewhere in her cell she could hide herself from his gaze — being naked in front of this man, of all men, was worse than the daily indignities Michel inflicted. 

After three thousand years, the agony of her memories had barely eased. Sucking off that thug was almost nothing to having _Methos_ see her so exposed and helpless again. 

She leaned back against the wall, folding her arms over her breasts, the best she could do to cover herself. 

"How long have you been here?" she heard him ask. 

She stared at him. "What gives you the impression that having a conversation with you is anything I would want to do in this or any other lifetime?" 

"I'm sorry." 

"Shut up." 

He obeyed and remained kneeling for several minutes, staring at her almost abstractedly. She turned her head away and ignored him, but the rattle of the chain as he attempted to stand caught her attention. The chain prevented him from rising to his feet and he jerked at it in frustration, sinking back to the cold floor. She watched him make the same depressing assessment of their prison as she had. 

His cell, as was hers, was perhaps eight feet long and five feet deep — barely enough space to walk around in. The floor was cold cement, with a drain set in it to serve as a toilet. The ceiling, perhaps three feet above a tall man's head, held a bare light bulb in a grilled recess. There were no windows, of course, only the impregnable sliding door, controlled by an electronic lock from outside. Three of the walls were bare, rough, grey concrete over brick; a fourth wall, separating the cells, was mostly fine metal mesh, set into the very bricks themselves so it couldn't be ripped out. The effect was unrelievedly grim. Doubtless as Ferenc had intended it. 

Having finished the brief survey of his surroundings, Methos looked at her again. This time, she refused to turn her head away, or to make any acknowledgment of his unspoken question. She wanted him to be completely sure of her total and utter lack of interest in his well-being, of her eternal loathing and hatred. 

They weren't left to stare at each other for much longer. Footsteps approached in the corridor, stopping for a moment in front of the door to Methos' cell. Then the door to her own cell opened, and Michel entered again. She braced herself, stomach turning over as she guessed that she was about to be raped again — this time, before Methos' eyes. 

Instead, Michel just went over to her, grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet, his face expressionless as ever. Bewildered, she looked up at him, but he ignored her confusion, forcing her out of the cell into the corridor. 

He pushed her only to the door to Methos' cell and stopped before it, twisting her arm behind her back, holding her that way one-handed. There was a plastic bucket on the floor nearby, but she didn't have time to do more than register its presence as Michel slid the key card across the sensor with his free hand. Before she could recover from her surprise and begin to fight him, she was shoved roughly through the open door, hard enough so that she fell to the floor, only barely breaking her fall with her hands. She lay there, not daring to move. 

He had stepped back into the corridor even as she fell, to get something from the corridor. Now he returned, holding the bucket in one hand and something small in the other. She heard sloshing sounds from the bucket. 

He lowered the bucket to the floor just inside the entrance. Then he threw the small object at her, and it fell with only the faintest of sounds: it was a washcloth. 

He walked over to Methos and kicked him in the side, knocking him over, then barked something at her. 

"I don't understand," she said, confused. 

"He said 'clean him'," Methos' voice gasped out. 

"No," she said. "No.... " 

_He had been fastidious about cleanliness. He alone of the four wore pure white robes, and she had more than once worn her fingers to bleeding rawness trying to clean the stains from them..._

No. Not again. Never again.... 

Michel's brutal hands forced her back to the present. Her wrist was seized and twisted up behind her back in a fashion that had become all too familiar, and she gasped with the pain as her shoulder almost dislocated. Her tormentor bent her down to the ground and said something. 

"He says do it or you know what they'll do." 

Methos' voice, soft as it was, seemed shockingly loud in the small cell, and for a moment, she couldn't comphrehend what he was saying. Then she gathered her wits. "All right. Tell him to let me up." 

Methos replied to Michel in the same harsh language, and she was freed. "Quickly, Cassandra," he urged. She shot him an evil look at the command, and felt all the more anger when she saw only concern in his expression — concern she knew it was feigned. 

She stood up with as much dignity as she could. Michel leered and reached one big hand up to stroke her cheek roughly, grinning wider as he saw the disgust in her eyes. Then he stepped back against the door and folded his arms, waiting for her to get on with it. 

She pushed the bucket of water closer to Methos with her foot, and concentrated on wetting the cloth in it, the details of what she was doing, to avoid having to think about it. Her stomach was already turning inside out at the thought of having to touch him again. 

She could do this. She could. She could do anything she had to, to survive. 

She knelt down. "Sit up," she said, and he did so, awkwardly, since he was unable to use his hands. 

Now that she was closer, she could see the encrusting blood... and other material, especially on his thighs and buttocks. Michel, and possibly Ferenc too, had enjoyed himself with the old Immortal. "Close your eyes," she told him. "I don't want you looking at me." He closed his eyes immediately, and she felt better. For once, she could give _him_ orders. 

She started with his face, because it was the easiest, roughly dragging the cloth over pale skin and dark stubble, and removing the dried blood with a few strong swipes which undoubtedly hurt but which meant she could spend the minimum time in contact with him. He kept completely still as she moved the cloth down his chest. His groin was crusted with blood — the smell of his soiled body was incredibly strong after so little sensory input for so long. She avoided touching him there, instead wiping his back and arms. 

Michel shouted angrily at her. 

"He said 'everywhere'," Methos translated, looking almost apologetic. "I'm sorry, he's...." 

She controlled the flare of rage that sparked within her; she spat on the floor, rather than on him, only because she knew she would have to clean it off. "Shut up, pig," she snarled. She shoved the cloth down hard on his penis and saw him wince in pain. "Lie flat. On your back." 

Because of his hands, it was difficult, and doubtless painful, but he obeyed without a complaint. She fought down nausea as she wiped the urine and blood and semen off his legs and genitals. She hoped he'd really suffered. She hoped he was going to suffer again. She'd hold the knife or the whip herself, if Ferenc would let her. 

Finally she was done, or so she thought. Michel disagreed, coming over to grip her hair and yank it back as he growled a complaint. "Oh, what now?" she said irritably. This was pointless. 

"He said you didn't clean my arse." Methos' face and his voice were expressionless now. 

"You're both pigs, animals!" She struggled in Michel's merciless grip and he smashed her across the face. Her nose broke with an ugly snap as black pain exploded throughout her head. 

When she came to her senses, lying on the floor clutching her face, she saw Methos had rolled over on his front, head twisted to one side, waiting patiently for her to touch his filthy backside. 

She saw now. He'd been raped as well as tortured, as she'd thought, and shit himself, pissed himself with pain and terror. She knew _exactly_ what that felt like. 

_Do you get it now, Methos? Do you understand now why I can never, ever be content while you walk the earth?_

Her thoughts absorbed her enough that she had begun to clean him before she realized what she was doing, but she gritted her teeth and continued the revolting task. Methos didn't move, didn't speak again. The one washcloth wasn't really enough to clean off the shit, but Michel didn't offer her another and she supposed she wasn't expected to get him _very_ clean. 

Her hands stilled, as she realised there was something black sticking to... no, sticking out of his arsehole. She reached out one hand and touched it, pulling back as if she'd been burned. It was some sort of... a length of dark, rough metal, protruding obscenely from him. Was the other end sharp? She didn't know whether to hope so or be sick at the thought. Then she collected herself. He deserved this and worse, after all. 

As her hand brushed it again, he suddenly screamed, trying to get away from her touch. She frowned in confusion — she had hardly put a finger on him. Michel barked out a command and she didn't need a translation to know he was telling her get on with it. For the moment, she concentrated on just cleaning around the horrible thing, but even that was causing him to writhe in agony, and to her revulsion, blood began to seep from his anus around the metal. What the hell was going on? 

She turned sharply, and saw Michel was fingering something — a control of some sort. As she looked at him, he grinned, and with slow deliberation, adjusted something on the small black box. Methos thrashed and keened like a dying animal. 

She backed away from both of them in horror, but Michel advanced and snarled as he grabbed her hair and dragged her back. He forced her hand onto the protruding handle, and made her help him pull out the device. It wasn't easy, and when the first globe of the strange thing emerged, bloodied and soiled, she wondered how on earth they had ever got it inside Methos in the first place. He had gone strangely quiet, his whole body rigid as he was yanked about, his rectum almost inverted by their tugging. But at last it was freed and she was left looking at a stick with three large balls on it — nothing to explain his agonised reactions. 

She glanced at Michel — a mistake, since it was what he was waiting for. He thumbed the control, and in front of her nauseated eyes, the three globes snapped open — each of the three globes flowering into several metal segments, almost like a series of huge seedpods on a stem. She knew instantly what those segments would do inside the nerve-laden tissues of the bowels, shredding and ripping. She dropped it from nerveless fingers, crawled to the drain and vomited until she thought her stomach would turn inside out. 

Strangely, failing to finish her task didn't seem to bother Michel this time.

* * *

Michel left after that, taking the bucket, cloth and the torture device with him. Methos had struggled away from her and was now lying on his side, but still facing her. Perhaps her retching had offended him — she really didn't care. 

"He wanted you to see that, you realise." 

"Shut up!" 

"Cassandra," he said patiently, "you have to listen to me. We don't have much time. What did you tell him about Mac?" 

She ignored him. For all she knew, Ferenc was listening somehow — through some unseen camera or recorder in the wall or ceiling. 

"Cassandra...," he repeated, his voice raised. 

"You fool!" she spat, momentarily unable to think of an obscenity that would match what she felt for him. "They could have this cell bugged." 

He shook his head. "No, it isn't." 

"How do you know?" 

Methos craned his neck to look around the cell briefly, as if rechecking something he was already sure of, and only then did he answer her. 

"I know what to look for. He doesn't have these cells bugged." 

Cassandra blinked. Ferenc was a professional, in a part of the world where secret police and interrogation of suspects by torture had been part of life until just a few years ago; it didn't make sense that the cells weren't bugged. "How could you possibly know that?" 

"These cells aren't for suspects," he explained. "Unless I miss my guess, our host is involved in organized crime, not a police force. This place is not about interrogating people — it's about punishing people who have offended him or his boss, whoever that is. He doesn't need to have bugs installed in these cells for that." He leaned forward a little. "What did you tell him about Mac?" 

"Nothing," she spat. "I have honour, unlike you." 

He relaxed, ignoring the insult. "Well, I kept his name out of it, but Ferenc is suspicious. He wanted to know about Kronos, how he died. What did you tell him? It's important our stories match." 

She had to admit the sense of that. "I told him as little as I could, as much of the truth as I dared," she answered reluctantly. "I kept Duncan's name out of it too, told him you killed Kronos. I have no interest in protecting you." 

She expected anger then, but he only nodded. "I know. That's what I said too. How did you say you got away from Kronos?" 

"I told him you let me out — and that I tried to kill you afterward. Wish I'd succeeded." 

He didn't respond, but she didn't expect him to. She lifted her head and looked him full in the eyes, hoping her own gaze showed her hatred as clearly as she felt it. 

"Hear me, Methos," she said, her voice cold as stone. "If you give away Duncan, if he comes to any harm through you, even after my death, I will find a way to avenge him." 

There was nothing on his face she could recognize: no fear, but also no mockery or contempt. He didn't turn away but looked back at her steadily. "I would expect nothing less." 

"And I want no contact with you." 

He grinned wryly, which surprised and annoyed her — but it still seemed he wasn't mocking her. "Well, as you've seen, you will have little control over that, whatever you or I want. Listen," he said more seriously, the smile fading. "They'll use you against me, me against you. Showing your disgust and your fear of me...." 

"I don't _fear_ you, Methos!" 

"Your loathing then — only gives them more to play with. You must hide your feelings." 

"You forget," she answered, feeling her throat thicken with bitterness. "I've had plenty of practice dealing with torturers and thugs. And at surviving." 

"Then you will survive. That's what Mac would want." 

Of course — she should have known. This little display was for Duncan's benefit. Perhaps he thought she'd put a good word in with the Highlander. 

She turned her back upon him contemptuously and lay down again, closing her eyes. He must be more deluded than she thought, she sneered, curling her lip as she contemplated the downfall of her hated former master. She might be dead before this was over, but at least she would see his destruction, as she had long promised herself. For herself, for Hijad, for her tribe and all the victims of the Horsemen. 

If she could hold on to her resolve... She remembered how she'd thrown up when she'd seen that thing open. She'd have to steel herself better in the future. The Horsemen never respected weakness. She couldn't afford to show that now. 

* * *

Michel came for Methos a little while later, dragging him out of the cell. He paid no further attention to her, and Methos offered no resistance. The sound of their steps dwindled and disappeared. 

More torment for him, she hoped, and then tried to put him out of her mind. Completely unsuccessfully, of course. She was never able to be unemotional when she thought about him. Even trying not to think about him upset her. She tried to relieve her stress by getting up and pacing but it had no effect except to warm her a little, which she supposed was something. 

She was wrong, however, to think she would be left in peace. Not long after Methos had been removed, Michel came back. 

He forced her back to her feet and cuffed her hands behind her back. Then he pulled her from the cell into the corridor — not toward the door to her own cell, but in the other direction, the one from which Methos' screams had always come. 

_He's taking me to the room_ , she realized. Her innards seemed to turn to ice and she had to force herself to breathe. She would not give them the satisfaction of her fear. 

The trip up the corridor was a short one. She was thrust through a heavy wooden door that was standing ajar into a room where she saw Ferenc waiting silently — and Methos, bound, spread obscenely in some sort of contraption of brushed metal and padding. Michel closed and locked the door behind her. 

The room itself wasn't very large, with small panels set at regular intervals in the unpainted plaster walls. There was no other furniture, only a drain in the floor in a third corner like the ones in their cells, and a small tap over it. 

Even as she was still making sense of this, Michel went to one wall, took a small key from his pocket and opened up one of the panels there. He pulled something out — a rigid metal collar, a chain and another key. After relocking the panel, he returned to her; he snapped the collar closed around her neck, locked it and attached the chain to it. 

She forced her eyes to Ferenc, who smiled in the way that she had learned promised misery for his victims. 

"Now, what am I to do with you? The bitch, I think, had nothing to do with Kronos' death," he looked directly at Cassandra, "so I guess you get to live — not that I'm doing you a favour, trust me. This bastard" — and he nodded at Methos — "is going to die, but not quickly. You see, while my main business is in arms, I have a sideline in certain ... devices." 

He spoke to Methos now. "You're going to get a chance to experience some of my better toys. When I'm no longer entertained, I'll take your Quickening and you can follow Kronos to hell." Turning back to Cassandra, he went on, "You are going to watch this, and amuse Michel — when you stop doing so, I'll dispose of you in the most profitable way I can." 

Her throat clenched tight. Surely no one... such slavery could not still exist, not after all this time. She prayed he was toying with her, that he planned to kill her or set her free, but in her heart, she knew he was telling the truth. 

He seemed not to notice or care about her reaction to his announcement, wanting to get on to his games. He clapped his hands. "So, now you know where we stand, let's begin." He waved his hand to Michel, who opened one of the cupboards and pulled a case from it. 

Michel opened the case and drew out a long, thin object, one that looked horribly like a soldering iron. For a heart-stopping moment, his leer was exactly like Caspian's, a knife in his hand.... _And the screams...._

Ferenc startled her from her memories, throwing something at her. In reflex she caught it, and saw what it was: a tube of some sort of lubricant. 

"That's right," Ferenc said. "You know what you have to do. Go on, grease him up." 

Her stomach seemed to curdle in nausea. Touch him? _Lubricate_ him, for whatever ungodly torture they were going to inflict upon him? But she dared not disobey. 

She went over to Methos. He didn't even look at her, staring rigidly up at the ceiling, but she saw his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed. 

Using all her willpower to brace herself, she opened the tube and squeezed some clear gel onto her fingers. Then the full impact of what she was being expected to do hit her, and her hand fell back to her side. 

Michel laughed. 

"Do it!" Ferenc ordered. "Or you'll be next." 

_No... not here, not like that... never again...._ Swallowing hard, clamping her jaw, she reached out her hand, slipping it under Methos, in between his buttocks. She almost stopped when her fingertips touched him, but forced herself to continue. 

_He deserves no better_ , she reminded herself. It didn't help as much as she had hoped. 

Her index finger slid against his opening. The nausea threatened again, but she shoved it down by main force as she pushed her fingers inside. To her shock, Methos was actually pushing down, opening for her. _Why?_ she wondered. _Why is he making this easier for me?_

She worked lube into him, trying hard to forget who it was she was touching — and why. Then Ferenc grabbed her wrist to make her stop. "You're enjoying that, arent you," he leered. "Now, get out of our way. You can just watch this." He took the tube from her, capped it, and shoved her aside. 

Cassandra stood near the wall, apparently forgotten, though she knew that she was not. She watched helplessly as they went to work. 

Michel shoved the strange item up Methos' arse, and switched on the power to it, to Methos' immediate and agonised reaction. Listening to him scream in the same room as he writhed and jerked, trying vainly to escape the pain, was nothing like hearing it from down a hall, and she put her hands tightly over her ears in reflex. _The screams had been her constant companion...._

Ignored for the moment, she huddled against the wall, listening to the animal sounds until she could stand it no longer. "Shut up!" she shrieked, and to her amazement the sound stopped. She must have used the Voice. But he was still in agony, twisting wildly and straining against his bonds. "Why the hell don't you pass out!" she yelled, hoping Ferenc would think she was doing nothing but expressing her anger and horror. It worked — Methos suddenly went limp and mercifully silent in the chair. 

Ferenc strode over to her, rage bristling in his every movement. She was roughly seized and pulled to her feet. "What the fuck did you do, bitch?" he demanded. 

"Nothing," she said coldly. "He just passed out, you know that." 

He glared, still suspicious, but it seemed, mercifully, Kronos hadn't told his lover about the Voice. Without that knowledge, Ferenc probably had no real idea what had just happened. So she hoped, anyway. 

Finally, Ferenc pushed her aside impatiently. Michel began to slap Methos into consciousness again, and then resumed probing his anus with the device which had caused him to scream so badly in the first place. 

She could watch that. She could even watch him be injected with a chemical which made him almost rip himself apart trying to escape the pain in his body. But when they brought a blowtorch out, she lost it. For the second time that day, she was reduced to puking her guts out. Michel, fucking a burned, semiconscious Methos, only laughed at her distress while his lover watched, smirking at all he had wrought.

* * *

Ferenc made her clean the floor, and Methos. After that, they put away all the 'toys' and other possible weapons, locking them back behind the panels, before he and Michel left. She felt dull surprise as she realized that she and Methos were being left in the room. Methos was still fastened to the chair; the collar around her own neck with its short leash meant she could only reach him and one half of the room. She could only imagine that Ferenc wasn't finished with them, not that she'd supposed he was — that was too much to hope for. 

She had this compulsion to wash her hands over and over under the trickle of water in the corner, still seeing her fingers covered in his blood. Finally she forced herself to stop doing so, but her hands itched as if the blood still lay sticky on them. 

She sat down wearily on the pallet, wondering just what it was she was feeling besides shock... or what she should feel. Methos stirred slightly in the chair, making a small creaking noise, as if trying to get a little more comfortable, and she looked over at him. 

"I suppose I should say 'I'm sorry'," she spat. 

He couldn't turn his head much, but he did so as much as he could. The only evidence of his ordeal now was his tired, pale face. 

"No need," he said, his voice thin and weak with exhaustion. 

She forced herself to remember her hatred. "You're damn right, it's all you deserve." 

He didn't say anything, and she turned away. 

"You took a stupid risk, helping me," he said. "You mustn't do that, not if you want to survive." 

"I didn't do it for you," she said, her shock turning into ice-cold anger. "I just couldn't stand the noise you were making," 

"He's not stupid," he continued. "He'll work it out." 

"Don't worry, Methos. I think I could get used to your screams. After all, mine never bothered _you_." 

"No," he admitted, to her surprise. "Not then, at least." 

She rounded on him, staring into that so-innocent face. "Am I supposed to believe you've become more caring? More sensitive?" Was that the persona with which he had fooled Duncan? "I know you, Methos. I know what you are, what you did. Nothing will ever change that. Not to me." 

He closed his eyes, as if utterly weary. He didn't even look annoyed, or frustrated. It enraged her that he wouldn't even give her the satisfaction of fighting with him, and then she realised that once again, he was controlling her emotions. With an angry sound, she turned her face into the wall, away from him, and lay down. 

Whatever Ferenc wanted to do to him, she resolved, she could watch and with no guilt. He was an animal, lower than an animal. There was no need for conscience over anything she might see here.

* * *

If the day followed the pattern of the others, they would not be disturbed for a while. She wasn't sure whether it was better or worse, not knowing that it was day or night, not knowing how many hours she sat, waiting for Ferenc to enter the room. Not knowing how many days were passing, how much closer she was to however Ferenc planned to finally dispose of her. 

At least _she_ could move. _He_ was forced to stare straight up at the ceiling, unable to roll, unable to stretch. 

It would be a while before food came, if it did. She lay on the pallet, a strange provision she thought, cursing the thinness of a mattress that was so little different from lying on the concrete of her cell, that she didn't know why she even paid lip service to the idea of being on a bed. She was thirsty — at least she would not want for water while she was in this room. She got up, went over to the little tap and drank from it, and washed her hands again, just to be sure. She glanced over at Methos; he seemed to be asleep now — how the hell _could_ he sleep in that position? 

With a shock, she realised _he_ would be thirsty. And the only way to bring him water would be in her hands. She would have to touch him again, voluntarily. She couldn't.... She returned to the uncomfortable pallet and turned to the wall, ignoring him. Or trying to. How could he dominate her thoughts without even being awake, she thought angrily, rolling back to face the room. He hadn't moved. He would _have_ to be thirsty — he'd lost pints of blood, and a lot of flesh. Immortal healing could only work with what was there; they still needed to drink. 

He could just bloody die of thirst, she swore. _He'd_ let her die, there, in the desert, running from Kronos' filthy touch. She'd died again and again of thirst, starvation — she'd broken her neck once, falling down a cliff. It had taken months before she dared approach a settlement, and even then she was taken as a slave again. She'd worked for the same family for years before another raid... everyone had died. Let him die too. 

She tried to sleep, since there was nothing else to do. The food was late. Her stomach felt hollow — she'd thrown up twice, she remembered. She rolled again, unable to find a single spot that didn't dig into her bones and make her more tired than standing would do. 

With a groan, she sat up again. He hadn't moved, hadn't said a word, but somehow she knew he was awake and she _hated_ that she could know something like that. 

She had spent so long erasing him from her soul, and now, he was back, scarring her psyche just as easily as he had when he'd taken her casually, fucking her, still in his leather armour and dusty breeches, his victims' blood on his arms and his face. That was why she'd finally taken to wiping his hands and arms when he got back from a raid — so he wouldn't touch her with his bloodied hands, so she didn't have to be part of the degradation of the people he murdered. 

Despite her efforts, his suffering grated on her mind. 

"Are you thirsty?" she heard herself ask, and then berated herself. But she couldn't retract the question without revealing that it bothered her. 

"Ye..." He cleared a throat obviously clogged and dry. "Yes." 

Nothing else. No request. No demand. Why did that make it harder? 

"There's no cup," she said, as if that answered him. He didn't say anything, and again, his acceptance of the situation made her want to strike him down. The silence yawned. "I'll need to use my hands." Why couldn't she just ignore him? 

He turned his head as much as he could. "It doesn't matter," he said simply and then she knew he knew what the problem was, that she was afraid and disgusted, and it enraged her that after all this time he could know that about her. She stood and walked to the tap, uncaring if he watched. The tap could not be jammed on, switching off as soon as she released the lever, so she could only collect what she could hold in one hand. Less than a quarter of a cup — nothing at all to a tall man, let alone one who had lost so much blood. 

Nonetheless he looked grateful as he took in the little fluid she could give him, careful not to touch her hand with his cracked, chapped lips. Her hand shook a little, spilling a couple of drops on his chin, and his tongue flicked out, chasing the few precious dribbles, so obviously still thirsty. 

She didn't offer more water, and he didn't ask for it. 

The observation panel in the door slid back, and a paper bag was tossed into the room. She picked it up eagerly, and looked inside — a bread roll. Sometimes her meal was fruit, once a piece of chicken. Not nearly enough for one, it was going to be nothing divided. He couldn't see what she held, and she knew he wouldn't ask, not this strangely deferential version of her hated master. She could eat it in a second — he couldn't stop her. 

And yet... she found she couldn't stop the impulse. She tore the bread in half, and brought it to him. 

"No," he said. "That's all there is, isn't it?" 

"Yes. There won't be more today. Take it." 

"No. I don't.... one of us needs to keep some strength. In case... if there's any chance... you have to take any chance." 

"I won't save you if there is," she said harshly, still holding the bread to his lips. He turned his head. 

"No. Eat it. I'm not hungry." 

He lied, she knew that too. She dropped her hand. "I will always hate you. No matter what you do, I will never forgive you." There. She'd made her stand. 

"I know. I don't expect...." He seemed to realise that nothing he could say made any difference, and with a little sigh, closed his eyes. 

She stood, looking at him. There wasn't enough for two. He was right. Sharing the food meant they both starved. She was the only one with a weapon, her Voice, and he could do nothing, pinned like a moth on a collector's table. 

The bread tasted like ashes mixed with blood.

* * *

Later, she saw him flinch as the buzz and the heavy footsteps in the corridor announced Ferenc's approach. Her heart was in her throat, and she could say nothing. But then he turned his face toward her. 

"I'll try to keep the noise down," he said softly. 

She could have killed him for saying that. 

The door slammed open and Ferenc and Michel strode in, Michel only in the stupid leather trousers that he liked to parade about in. She had to restrain herself from cringing against the wall. She refused to give them the satisfaction, and anyway, she had come to realise it would not save her one whit of the distress to come. 

Ferenc didn't speak a word but signalled to Michel, who seized her arm as usual and dragged her to where Methos lay restrained in the chair, the chain jangling behind her. 

Methos had his eyes closed, until Michel let go of her so that he could slap him hard and bark a guttural command obviously intended to make him pay attention. Methos' eyes turned to her first, as they had before. She wished he'd stop doing that. 

Michel unlocked a wall panel. Inside she saw a tap, with a gauge attached to it. He pulled out a long rubber tube from the recess, looping it up in his hands. He shoved one end of the hose into her reluctant hands. 

He went over to the tap and fasted the other end of the hose to it, before stepping back and awaiting his lover's wishes. 

Ferenc muttered a command to Michel, then smiled at her. "I doubt our little friend here will obligingly hold his mouth open for us." 

Michel approached the chair, drawing something out of his pocket. He gripped Methos' jaw with one hand, then punched him in the diaphragm with the other. Methos couldn't help but groan with pain, allowing Michel to shove whatever it was into his open mouth. When he moved aside, she saw it was a bizarre gag, designed to keep the victims mouth open rather than sealed, in a parody of acceptance of whatever the aggressor chose to insert. Two straps dangled from it. 

Michel fastened the straps around Methos' head. When he was satisfied, he stood back to let Ferenc inspect things. 

Ferenc walked around them both, surveying the arrangements with evident pleasure. "A human stomach can hold a litre of liquid without too much difficulty," he remarked. "A mortal will die if you force him to ingest more than two. An Immortal? Well, I haven't had much chance to compare and contrast, but we'll see soon enough. Now, Cassandra, take the tube and put it into his mouth, stick it down his throat." 

She didn't move fast enough for him and he slapped her hard across the face. "How much do _you_ think you can take, you stupid slut? Michel would be more than happy to find out. Move!" Hastily she inserted the hose in the opening of the gag. "Into his stomach, not his lungs," Ferenc directed. "Although drowning is nearly as unpleasant as what I've got planned. Get it wrong, and you'll take his place." 

"I don't know how...." She was frozen with fear. Dear gods, what could she do? 

"Make him swallow." 

"How?" 

"Think of something!" 

He was too obviously enjoying her confusion and terror so she turned her attention to his other victim. Methos' eyes held no expression above the hideous gag, and she couldn't very well plead with him to help her torture him. She pushed the tube in, making him gag, but to her astonishment, it began to move. His throat was working — he was swallowing it! For her? Or just to avoid having a lung full of water? She didn't know why but she continued the gruesome business of pushing the hose into his throat, trying and failing not to think of what was coming next. How much water could a human hold? His stomach was as flat as hers — in her mind's eye, she saw it ballooning under the pressure of the fluid rushing in, and wanted to be sick again. For the first time, she felt a flicker of real pity for Methos. 

Ferenc seemed to sense her thoughts; he grinned as she pushed the tube in deeper and deeper. He nodded, signalling that she could stop inserting the tube; she guessed it was all the way into Methos' stomach now. 

Michel walked over to the tap and, at a nod from his lover, turned it on. Methos' reaction was immediate; he tried desperately to cough up the hose and the water and failed. Ferenc, standing by his head, reached down and held Methos' face between his hands, looking directly into his eyes. "You know this will happen whatever you do. Struggling will just prolong it. Do, by all means, keep this up." Methos' glare was pure hate, but he went still. Another nod from Ferenc, Michel adjusted the tap, and Methos bucked — the flow must have increased. 

Ferenc's smile had faded; he now watched Methos' face intently, as if to take in every grimace, every change of expression. So absorbed was he in his victim that he seemed to have forgotten Cassandra's existence; but Michel was at her side now, once again holding her arm in a crushingly powerful grip. Even now, there was no opportunity for action. 

Methos was squirming now, and groaning around the gag, even though there was no sign of distention yet. Now, foolishly, she wished she'd disobeyed Ferenc and put the tube into his victim's lungs, although there wasn't a lot to choose between the agony of drowning and this.... 

As she looked back at Methos, she saw his belly was now noticeably rounded. Ferenc's hands had been obscenely caressing Methos' face, fondling his jaw, his temples, his cheekbones...but now he looked up, and saw the same thing. His smile broadened. "Ah, making progress at last." 

And then, his broad hands left Methos' head entirely. Unbelievably, even as her own stomach roiled on the verge of nausea, and Methos squirmed and whimpered quietly in pain, those hands slid downward, and fumbled with the zipper of his trousers. Cassandra thought she couldn't bear to watch him, but found she couldn't avoid making little furtive glances — and then there was the pale flash of naked skin as he drew out his thick penis and began to run one hand down its length. 

Michel left the tap running and came over to stand behind his lover, reaching around him to caress his cock. Ferenc enjoyed it for a few moments with closed eyes, but then abruptly, Ferenc turned to Cassandra. "I don't have to tell you not to move, do I? You won't accomplish anything, except to make sure you're the next one to get a water cure." He grinned coldly again, looking into her eyes, ready for any hint of defiance. 

She didn't know where to turn her eyes — to look at Methos' strained face, and the torture of his abdomen (could a man really take so much water? — it had been running for so long) or at the two men, fondling each other. She would have turned away in rejection of the horror in front of her, if she didn't know that it would bring instant punishment on her head. She didn't want to give them any excuse to practice on her. 

Ferenc watched her for long minutes, Michel still idly playing with his stiffened cock, until he pushed his lover's hands away and went to stand between Methos' legs, his erection bobbing obscenely. Michel stood by Methos' side, mercifully obscuring some of the view for Cassandra as Ferenc roughly felt Methos' abdomen. He nodded, as if to himself, and then turned to pin Cassandra with a steady stare. Watching her. Almost daring her to try anything or even turn away. 

Methos jerked again. 

Michel left off playing with his lover, came over to Methos and roughly pulled the slick hose out of his gagged mouth, dropping it to the floor. He produced a nose clip and pinched Methos' nose shut. Then he bent down, took the key chain from around his own neck and unlocked the chair control. He pressed the button which tilted the chair and slowly it began to move, upending it until Methos was at an eighty-degree angle, his head toward the floor, his legs in the air. His face was purpling up and his strangled protests at the pain were continuous now. 

Ferenc didn't seem to care. He said something softly to Michel, who smiled, and came to his lover. He knelt, taking Ferenc's unrelieved erection in his mouth. As she watched, unable to tear her eyes from the revolting scene, Michel sucked his lover off to the constant sounds of Methos' agony. 

_....in his tent, Methos rammed his cock into her mouth. But for once she hardly noticed, listening to Caspian and Silas outside in the camp, fighting over a new captive. She could hear Kronos insisting they share her. She heard a scream — and then another. Methos looked down at her. "I guess they took the literal approach," he smirked. She gagged, and he pushed her away in annoyance, retying his breeches and stalking out of the tent. She crawled away, the sounds of the dying slave playing over and over in her mind...._

She crouched in the corner, forgotten. _Unable to forget...._

* * *

After Ferenc came, he lost interest in the whole business, a small and unexpected mercy. Michel, rather to her surprise, took the gag and the nose clip off and released Methos from the chair, tossing him like garbage onto the ground, where he vomited and convulsed. 

When he finally fell quiet, the two torturers picked him up, unlocked Cassandra, and dragged them both back to their cells. 

Methos was apparently unaware of his surroundings, or of the fact that they were back in their cells. For all that he was out of it, he was not peaceful. He was obviously still in a great deal of pain, and there was nothing she could do to relieve it. The water had to leave his system, and what he had not expelled one way or another would have to come out later. She knew the effects of cerebral oedema, had seen mortal patients afflicted with it after injuries or illness. If Methos were lucky, he'd go into a coma and die, reviving in reasonable health. But if the distressed groaning and mumbling were anything to go by, she doubted he was going to have it that easy. 

It was fascinating in the worst possible way to see him like this. Helpless, incoherent. He, who always seemed so cold, so rational, so utterly in control of himself and his surroundings. Only twice before had she seen glimpses of him shaken by emotions that were not rage or lust. In Duncan's dojo, denying her thrice — he had been afraid, and she had never seen that before, she realised. She had been so enraged at seeing him again, she hadn't appreciated what he had become. A rabbit, she sneered to herself, remembering him hiding behind Duncan. A coward and a liar. 

And then in Bordeaux — prostrate with apparent grief, even if it was only over the bullying thug Silas. All it had meant to her then was that he was helpless and she, for once, had him where she wanted him. But later, when her mind would no longer allow her to put the whole horrible episode in the dark place where she hid such things, she had wondered whether he had truly loved the giant, and if it were possible his grief was real. 

With a slight shock, she realised he was speaking actual words now, and with the kind of passion that she had once thought beyond him. Love? No, not him. A woman's name? She began to listen more carefully. 

"'Don't cry, my love. No, 'Lexa, I don't mind, you're still my girl. The doctors don't know everything. We can, we can go... darling, don't... no I can't, I won't leave you... 'Lexa, don't go, don't go! 'Lexa!" he screamed weakly. 

He began to weep, speaking brokenly. "Noooo, not now... she can't be dead, you're wrong!" He argued with someone unseen in his delirium, dropping into incoherency, then screaming suddenly in rage and grief. 

Who was this 'Lexa'? Someone he'd claimed to love? He was incapable of feeling real love, she was utterly convinced. Perhaps someone he used for his 'Adam Pierson' persona? Oh, God, he was crying again. 

He cried easily for a monster... but he had mocked her tears over the loss of her family, all her tribe. He had found her weeping over a simple amulet she'd recognised as her foster sister's, which one of the slave women had been wearing and had willingly given to her when she showed distress at seeing it. (That was before she became his whore, the mistress of his tent, of course. None of the slaves would talk to her after that.) 

He'd torn it from her hands. "Crude rubbish — we did you a favour, killing those pathetic people you called your own. They were nothing." 

"They were my _family_!" she'd screamed in rage at him. This was before she had learned submission. 

He had slapped her, then crushed the amulet beneath his foot. 

"And they are dead. Only we endure, and you only while I wish it. Bring my food," he'd ordered, going into the tent. 

Ruthlessly he had punished the slightest dissent, the merest hint that she grieved for her dead tribe. Nor would he permit her to form bonds with any other human being. She was not allowed to talk to anyone other than him or the others who called themselves her masters. She was his, his thing, his toy, and toys had nothing of their own. He'd told her so often enough, until he had managed to grind her spirit into the dust, and her heart was as dry and empty as the desert the camp was made in. The only person who aroused any emotion in her any more was her owner. Completely isolated, desperate for human contact, she tried to please him, to ward off the blows and the cold sarcasm that shredded her and reduced her to desperation. 

If she had been able to imagine him then as he was at this moment, like an incontinent puling child, surely he would have had no power over her at all. But he had seemed like a god, untouchable, unknowable, without feelings or joy of any sort.... 

It disgusted her now to the point of retching to think how she had worn earrings torn from the ears of his victims. It revolted her to remember how she had been pathetically pleased at a casual compliment he made once about how beautiful she looked. He had made her take him in her mouth straight after, but at least he hadn't choked her with his cock, which he had done in the early days. 

Now, he had quietened again, she saw, but only because he had lapsed into semi-consciousness. He was shaking, jerking a little — his brain was overloading from all the water in his blood. As she watched, he had a seizure, his limbs smashing into the wall to which he was bound. She winced as she heard the sharp crack of breaking bones as his arm flailed against the concrete, but he was insensible to his injury, falling completely still as the fit ended. 

For the first time, she began to wonder if even _her_ thirst for vengeance had reached satiation point.

* * *

She should have realised that Michel and Ferenc would not want to miss an opportunity to inflict the maximum of pain on their captive. 

Michel returned after what felt like an hour to throw a few pieces of bread at her, and then he went into the next cell and unchained Methos, dragging him away from the wall. After unfixing the chain from the wall, he manoeuvred the unconscious man into an awkward position, bent over his straining abdomen, his head pulled down so that his face almost touched the ground. Michel wrapped the chain under and around his knees, his neck and his back, holding him in that folded-over position. Lastly, he pulled Methos' arms up behind him and bound them to his collar with another piece of chain. 

He looked at her and winked — before aiming a powerful kick at the chained man's side, shocking him into consciousness. 

Methos began to struggle as Michel leaned against the wall to watch, grinning. The thug's smile grew broader as Methos' agonies became all too apparent. The Immortal cried out in sharp gasped curses, barely able to move in any direction to relieve the pressure on his stomach, or the strain on his twisted limbs. 

All Cassandra's hatred seemed to have deserted her. She couldn't watch and not try to help. 

"Stop it!" she ordered, using the Voice. Immediately his struggles ceased, but he turned his face towards her, desperation stark in his eyes. "You will sleep, Methos. You will feel no pain." She was taking an enormous risk, but the giant spoke no English. She _might_ get away with it. And if not, well.... 

Methos quietened, and his eyes closed. 

Michel roared, utter rage on his brute's face. He took a step towards his victim, but then looked up and saw her watching. He growled something, switching his gaze between her and Methos as if he didn't know who had made him angrier. Finally, he turned and stalked out of Methos' cell. 

A moment later, he was in her cell, pulling her up by her hair. She went limp, forcing him to drop her, but he only kicked her flat. 

She did what she always did when he raped her — took herself back to her little home, hidden in the forest, a place of sanctuary and healing. Curiously buoyed by defeating this pig at his game, she could slip away from her body and away from the ripping pain in her private parts and her breasts as they were roughly squeezed and mauled. 

He throttled her to death before he was done.

* * *

When she woke, choking back to life, he was gone. To tell Ferenc? Right now, she hardly cared. 

Methos was still in the unnatural, desperately uncomfortable position into which he'd been bound, but he was awake again, his head turned as much as he could manage toward her. "Thank you," he said simply, in a weak voice. His chest was crushed hard against his thighs — speaking was undoubtedly hard for him. 

She acknowledged his words with a nod before crawling to the bucket of water always left in the cell — Ferenc was another fastidious torturer, she thought grimly — and splashed her face and her body. She was cold when she finished, but it was worth it to take some of the feel of Michel's touch from her. The meagre stale bread he had thrown into the cell was still lying on the floor, and she forced herself to eat it. She realised that she had yet to see Methos receive a crumb to eat — Ferenc didn't want to miss any chance to cause him distress, it seemed. 

She couldn't avoid him forever — he kept looking in her direction, and there was nowhere to hide from his gaze. She could have turned her back, but she was damned if she would allow him to dictate her movements. If she had ordered him to look away, even without the Voice, she knew he would obey... but she couldn't bring herself to add to his discomfort. She doubted his position was endurable for five minutes, kneeling on a chain as he was. She also knew it was likely that he was going to be like this for more than a few minutes. 

His eyes pleaded for something — what? Pain relief? She could use the Voice again. She opened her mouth to do so but he stopped her. "No, please... don't send me back to sleep." 

Astonished, she stared at him. "What do you want then?" 

"Nothing. I'm sorry. When I sleep... it's closer to when they will kill me...," he whispered, then he looked at the floor in apparent shame. 

_Coward_ , she thought... but without the venom she had felt before. 

Then any further thoughts she might have had were cut off, because there were footsteps in the corridor — heavy, fast-paced, two sets of them. Michel and Ferenc. Her heart thudded hard enough to choke her as the door to her cell slid open and they stormed in. 

Ferenc's face was, if possible, even harder than it had ever been before as he strode toward her. 

"It seems you've got a few tricks up your sleeve, bitch, but you won't screw with me," he snapped, as Michel pulled her up, then seized her arms and pinned them behind her. "In the future, I'm going to see to it you don't get the chance to use them. I'm going to teach _both_ of you a lesson — you help him, you both suffer. Michel...," and he barked a command. 

Michel dragged her toward the wall, with its chains they had never before used on her. 

They were going to torture her in front of Methos. She could try to use the Voice to put him to sleep — but that would only bring worse troubles upon her head as well as Methos'. 

Michel chained her so that her arms were stretched above her head. She couldn't move, not even to kick. Then, he left the cell while Ferenc waited, glaring coldly into her eyes. 

She risked a sidelong glance at Methos, but his face was turned to the floor again and she couldn't see his expression. The next thing she knew, Ferenc had once again struck her across the face with his fist. 

"Don't even _look_ at him! No more tricks!" he almost shouted, eyes hot with anger. "Or we'll get the girl and do the same to her." 

Her heart froze at that. _Not yet_ , she thought desperately. _They can still reach her...._

Michel returned a minute or so later. Looking over Ferenc's shoulder, she could see he was holding something. Ferenc stepped aside, and she got a better look: a smaller version of the same device they had used on Methos before. 

She gritted her teeth to keep from screaming, but she knew stark terror showed on her face.  

Then they began, and she no longer worried about whether Methos was watching or not.

* * *

When she revived, they unchained Methos and dragged him away to another session in the room. They didn't unchain her. 

Only the growing pain in her feet and her arms measured time as she stood there on tiptoe, and by the muffled screams once again coming from that distant room. 

_No guilt_ , she tried reminded herself. He deserved what he was getting. She should have been stronger, should have endured his screams and not used the Voice. Simple, instinctive, gut-level human compassion had weakened her. 

It was the irony of that last thought, spiking through the growing haze of pain and weariness, that brought her up short. It was the sort of thing Methos — and Kronos — would have said. 

_Was_ her impulse to pity him really weakness? Or was she trying to convince herself of something her heart no longer believed? 

The image persisted: Methos, bound in agony, begging her not to put him to sleep with the Voice again. Turning his face from her as he admitted his fear. Vulnerable. Human. Something he'd never been as a Horseman. 

He was afraid. Terrified. She had never imagined him _scared_ , even though she thought he was a coward. 

And with a flash of revelation, she understood that her perception of Methos had changed, changed utterly, with that sight. She didn't fear him any more. 

He was not a monster, not her former captor, but a man. A man she disliked, a man she would cheerfully have taken the head of, but a man. A tired, desperate, frightened man. He had become someone she could actually deal with, who she could manage. He was afraid where she was not. That gave her strength, and a small measure of compassion for his plight, if not for him.

* * *

Some time later, Michel returned, dragging Methos into his cell. The other Immortal was barely conscious. 

Michel only glanced briefly at her as he chained Methos up again, a little less tightly than before. But he left him still kneeling on the chain. 

After that, he came into her cell and unchained her, then once again demanded the services of her mouth before leaving. She knew Methos was seeing this, or at least hearing it, whether he wanted to or not, but it no longer seemed to have any power to humiliate her. 

She spat on the floor, trying to rid her mouth of the taste, and then sat down in one corner, closing her eyes. She wondered why Michel hadn't chained and gagged her again, leaving her free to use the Voice. Probably they didn't care just now, since they weren't there to enjoy Methos' pain. Maybe they thought she'd be too scared now. A pang of remembered agony shot through her jaw at the thought, and she shuddered. 

Looking over at him, she saw he was shivering, almost imperceptibly. Pain? Fear? Simple cold? He turned his head, looking up to meet her eyes, but she couldn't read his expression. After a moment he turned away and sighed. 

She opened her mouth to speak, and lost her voice as another flash of remembered pain struck her. The pear... the spikes, breaking her palate, tearing apart her tongue... she forced the memory back down into the shadowy depths of her mind. 

_I won't be afraid. Not of Methos, not of them._

She took a deep breath, and began again. 

"Let me ease your pain, Methos. You cannot feel your body. Listen to my voice instead," she said softly. This time she only used ordinary human persuasion, no special powers. 

"I can't," he grunted. 

"Yes, you can. Think of something pleasant, someone... Lexa?" The name slipped out, she had not intended to be cruel, but he closed his eyes as if in fresh pain. "I'm sorry — you mentioned her before." 

With an obvious effort, he turned back to her. "I can't talk about her." 

And that made it more important that she find out who this 'Lexa' was. She could compel him to speak. A few hours ago she would have done just that... but that would make her no better than Ferenc. "Did you love her?" 

"I'm sure you don't believe I could have," he said bitterly. 

"She died?" 

"Yes, she died," he said harshly. "I fell insanely and unwisely in love with a woman who had less than a year to live and when she died, I railed against the gods for their unfairness. Does that make you feel better? To know I can be hurt? Does my pain do _anything_ to heal yours?" He clamped his lips shut and turned his head away again. 

She opened her mouth to hurl an insult back in reply, but then she closed it again. Angry as he was, unjust as he was, he spoke truth in his bitterness. His pain did nothing to heal her. All it did was open up old wounds and stir up memories that were really better dead and buried. 

"Methos," she said quietly. "I'm sorry she died." 

She heard a muffled sound, like a sob. He kept turned away from her for a very long time, and she was sure he would ignore her. But then he faced her again, and there were shining wet tracks across his cheeks. She had made him cry, she realised in astonishment. She had the power to hurt him that deeply. 

"What do you want from me, Cassandra?" he said finally, wearily. "Does watching me suffer make you feel good?" 

"Yes," she blurted out, and he closed her eyes, as if it was what he expected to hear. "I mean, it did. I thought it would. But I can't do this any more. I thought I wanted to hurt you." 

"So you have been granted your heart's desire. Congratulations." 

"It's not like I'm getting a choice." 

"No." 

"I don't want this. I'm not enjoying it, if you think I am. Inflicting pain, so much pain... I'm becoming like them." She lowered her eyes, feeling a ghost of nausea in her belly. 

"And so you have the essence of the degradation of torture, Cassandra," Methos' pain-weakened voice broke through her internal darkness. "You have no choice unless you wish to die too, and ensure the child dies. While you live, you have a chance to save yourself, save her. Die, and you have none." 

Puzzled, she looked back up at him. "Why would you care? Even if at the end of it, you're dead, they can't use me to do harm to you." 

"No, they'll just do it themselves, and I will have your death along with the thousands of others on my conscience. Your being here makes no difference. They will torture me anyway. He loves it," Methos added bitterly. 

"So did you," she said, unable to hold back the accusation. 

"No. I never _loved_ it. I'm not Caspian, Cassandra. I loved _power_ — not inflicting pain for its own sake. Brutality and fear were weapons I used for my own ends. When gentleness worked as well, I used it too. You know that. In the end, I did as much damage being kind to you as I did by beating you." 

She thought her stomach would turn all the way over at those words; she regretted the compassion she'd begun to feel. 

"You still think I fell in love with you," she spat. "You're deluded." 

"Perhaps. But I know I did you harm. I regret that. I don't know any other way to say that." 

"Keep your regrets and your apology, Methos. All you're doing is making it easier to do as they ask." She turned her face away. 

"Then," he said softly, "that is something." 

"No, it's _nothing_!" she said angrily. "Do you want to goad me into hurting you willingly?" She flung his words back at him. "Does _my_ suffering make you feel better?" 

He looked at her in a peculiar way and she couldn't read what he was thinking at all. "Is that what you think? That hurting you ever made me feel good?" 

"Why would you hurt me otherwise? You beat me to _death_ , Methos. More than once. You raped me, you isolated me and terrorised me. Why would you do that, if not because you enjoyed it?" 

He made a sound which sound like an aborted laugh, but his mouth was twisted in disgust. "'Joy' was hardly part of it. You think you were special? Did you ever see me treat anyone differently? Any _slave_?" 

She thought, remembering, fighting down her emotions so she could see the past clearly. "No," she admitted finally. If anything, he was harder on others than on her. 

"No," he repeated. "Cassandra, the joyless, angry, aggressive fucker that I was thought everyone but himself and his brothers was trash, to be crushed, destroyed or sold. You were nothing, all our victims were nothing." Now he did laugh dryly. "If I were to say to you, don't take it so personally, you would be within your rights to take my head off with a butter knife." 

Her rage spilled out. She should never have softened, never.... "You are and were the worst filth known to humanity!" 

"Were, I grant you. Next to your Hitlers, we were pathetic, talentless amateurs." 

"Is that supposed to make what you did somehow acceptable?" 

"No. I'm sorry my brain is not functioning at its best. You asked if I enjoyed your pain. The answer is 'no'. I can't give you a reason that makes any sense for why I did what I did. I wasn't as bad as you think — I was worse. Much worse. The only defence I can offer is that I don't act that way any more, that I'm not like that now. It's not enough, I know. Not for you, not for — _him_ ," and she knew he meant MacLeod. 

Her anger was draining away again. She wanted to curse him for weakening her resolve. "And this 'Lexa'?" she demanded, trying to hold on to it. "Did you tell her who you were?" 

He went very still. Even his breathing seemed to stop. "Please, Cassandra," he said so quietly, she had to really strain to hear his words, "keep her out of this. You don't need to drag her in to make me feel bad. I've already told you I regret what I did to you, and to my other victims. I know that can never be enough. But let Alexa rest in peace. She never harmed you." 

A weakness, and a weakness freely admitted. If she wanted to hurt him, to be cruel, she had a weapon ready made. 

Her hatred, her lust for revenge, and her earlier insights mingled strangely, weaving themselves into something else that she couldn't understand just now. _I... can't become like him_ , the ghost of her resolution reminded her. _Like Ferenc or Michel. But...._

"Methos, tell me about her?" 

"And if I don't?" 

She shrugged. "Well, we're not going anywhere. I won't force you, Methos. I'm not you." 

She settled back against the wall, rubbing her hands against her cold arms, distracted by the lingering, phantom pain in her body from the torture, and so it was she almost missed the first, faltering words of a tale of a doomed, cruelly short love and of the sweetness that was Methos' last wife. 

* * *

They had little time to sleep, or talk. Again and again, they were pulled out of the cells and dragged to the other room. She had imagined, foolishly, that she had seen the worst Ferenc could come up with — she had truly never considered how wonderfully inventive a sadist with money and time on his hands could be. Electricity. Drugs. More gadgets. Fire. They used all these things to reduce Methos to a screaming incoherent animal, again and again. 

She endured, as he did, because there was no option. She wasn't often asked to actually assist, to her relief, but it was unspeakably horrifying to watch it all happening in front of her. Grimly she bided her time. How long had she been here? A month? Two months? She couldn't really tell — Ferenc was playing with their diurnal clocks, waking them after a couple of hours, changing the lighting and so forth, until even with her powers, she had to struggle to keep a hold on reality. 

Michel gagged her if he abused Methos on his own in the cell, but left her free at other times — she presumed mainly because that would have prevented Michel from using her mouth. It meant that in between the bouts of torture, she and Methos had at least a little time to talk further with each other. 

She felt she owed him something for the story of Alexa, so she told him about how a friend with cancer had asked her to take on the care of her daughter, Shona — then just an infant of six months — when she was dying, and how she'd formalised the adoption when her friend died. Because of the precarious nature of Immortal existence, she'd ensured that the little girl had another guardian, with whom she lived during the school terms, or when Cassandra was away. 

He listened carefully, offering little comment, but she got the impression he was grateful she had told him. Some time later, when she asked what had happened to the Highlander, he told her in a quiet voice of the tragedy of Duncan's murder of his beloved student. Cassandra listened in horror and pity as Methos described the Scot's rapid spiral into insanity, culminating in the death of Richard Ryan, Duncan's wish to die, and his sudden and total disappearance, which had confounded Methos, Joe Dawson and the Watchers. 

"And you have no idea what triggered this?" she asked. 

He shrugged wearily. "Duncan has had a lot to bear over recent years, taken a lot of heads. Kronos' Quickening, Byron's — maybe he overloaded. I should have seen it coming, I guess." 

Her heart had grown cold again as she realised that Methos may have been responsible for Duncan's madness by throwing Kronos in his path, and she had not been inclined to continue the conversation. He had taken her rejection, as he had taken her earlier demand that he talk, without comment, turning aside and trying to sleep. 

He needed all the rest he could get. Ferenc had tired of his toys, and had reverted to the sort of barbarism that would have delighted Caspian. 

A crisis came when she was almost sure she had been held for at least a month — some three weeks, by her guess, after Methos had been brought there. Once again, they were brought to the room she dreaded. Methos was bound in the hideous 'chair' and she was forced to stand close and watch as Michel took a huge knife and cut across Methos' abdomen, from one side to the other just below the navel. With a welter of gore, pale intestines spilled out and onto the floor. She gagged at the sight, and then the stench hit her. She felt that she could not breathe, and she vomited bile — the only thing her empty stomach could bring up. 

She was dragged upright as soon as she finished retching. "Put your hands inside him," Ferenc's voice sounded. "You're going to pull his liver out." 

This was, by far, the most revolting thing he had yet demanded of her. No more, she told herself. She shook her head, unable even to look at Methos' mangled body. "You're insane." 

He bared his teeth. "Possibly. Do as I say." 

"No. No more. I'm not going to become you." She stepped back, her heart thudding hard in her chest, stomach still convulsing. 

Michel, of course, grabbed her and dragged her forward. Still she refused to cooperate. 

"Have you forgotten the girl already, bitch?" Ferenc growled. 

"I am not going to purchase a life at the price of being a torturer myself," she said steadily, looking him in the eye. 

Ferenc's fist drew back, and she knew the blow was coming, but still she refused to flinch. He smashed her across the face and shouted something at Michel. 

He released her arm, and shoved her at Ferenc. Ferenc seized her in turn, then dragged her over to Methos, holding her arm with one hand; she offered no resistance, knowing it was futile. Using his free hand, he uncuffed Methos, pushing him free of the restraints and onto the blood-slick floor with a sickening thump. The older Immortal was too weakened from the massive wound to fight; Michel chained him to the wall without resistance. 

Ferenc twisted her hair and brought her face close to his. The expression in his eyes went beyond vicious; it was demonic. _He has bad breath_ , she thought, marvelling that she could smell it above the incredible stench of Methos' severed intestines. _How does an Immortal get bad breath?_

"Perhaps," he grated, "you'll change your mind if you have a chance to see what you've brought on her for yourself." 

As Michel forced her across the bloody floor into the restraints that Methos had so recently occupied, and Ferenc picked up the knife, she steeled herself. She was Immortal. It was going to hurt, but if he wanted her head, he would have taken it. It was all a matter of enduring. She could do that, just as she had endured all the rest. 

But as the first cut was made, she was glad she really didn't have a choice. Bravery would only take you so far.

* * *

She came awake to the sound of Methos' voice, pleading softly. "Cassandra, wake up, please wake up," he was saying, over and over. 

"I'm awake." She was too sore and tired to infuse the words with scorn. She rolled over and found she was pressed against the mesh wall. He was lying before it, on his side, facing her, and to her astonishment she could see tears on his face. 

"Are you all right? Oh God, Cassandra...." 

"I'm Immortal, Methos. Calm yourself." She felt the most absurd need to comfort him, and squashed it ruthlessly. She always had to remind herself who he was, but it was having less and less effect as he grew weaker, so obviously not a threat to anyone. 

"I'm sorry, but when I saw... the child, you gave up the child... tell him you agree, don't let her die...." This incoherency was so unlike him, she thought. A sign he was losing control, she knew. 

"Oh, be quiet, man. Do you really think I would sacrifice a little girl to spare you some aches and pains?" 

He went very still, and then his face split in a grin. "You have a plan." 

"Yes, I have a plan. If I go out of contact for more than three weeks, Shona's guardian knows to take her somewhere safe and wait for me to contact her. If I don't make contact in six months, she is to assume I am dead. She's safe." 

"She's safe," Methos repeated stupidly. "She's safe? But what they did to you...." 

"Boring, don't you think?" It cost her more than she would ever admit to dismiss the screaming agonies and the terror that way, but he made it worth it by his sudden laugh. A joyous, light sound she would never have imagined could be so welcome. 

"Oh yes," he said, continuing the conceit. "Boring. Uninspired. Messy though." 

"Yes, he's not house-trained," she said, and then giggled. Hysteria, she told herself. 

"On a scale of one to ten of torturers you've known, you'd say he was...?" 

"Oh, four, I think. The Romanian judge gives him five for artistic interpretation." 

Methos collapsed, cackling, rolling onto his back, holding himself, and she found laughter bubbling up inside her. They must be insane, she thought. This wasn't funny in the slightest — but then a vision of a row of solemn faced judges holding up a series of scorecards behind Michel as he went at it rose in her mind and she couldn't help it. She burst out giggling, which set him off again, until they were both laughing manically. 

The fit didn't last long, but it was healing. When he calmed, he knelt up — slowly, she saw, and realised that Ferenc must have once again shoved something clever up Methos' tortured arse — and placed his hand against the mesh. "If you say 'live long and prosper', I'm going to take your head," she warned, and he coughed out another laugh, then shook his head. 

"Cassandra, you can't let them torture you in my stead." 

"They want to sell me. They won't do it forever. It makes a change from rape, anyway," she said, and his expression sobered. 

"I'm so very sorry for this," he said in a low voice. "You should do what they ask." 

"They can only imprison someone who is not free in her own mind. While I don't play their games, they have no hold on me. Besides, it's you he is fascinated with. I'm the wrong sex." 

He smiled sadly, and laid his cheek against the mesh. She raised a tentative hand and mapped it against his, held against the grill. 

"While there's life, there's a possibility of escape, Cassandra," he said. "All I want is for you to live. I know you will get free if you can get out of here, however you go." 

"I am already free, in here, Methos," she said, touching her head. "We... if I can, if I leave... I will try to save you...." 

He lifted his head sharply. "Why?" 

"For — Duncan... and... because you cared about the child." 

The grief on his face when she said that did something to her she could not describe or explain. "You must survive," he repeated. 

"I will. Because...." 

"The alternative is unthinkable," he completed. He made to sit down, and winced as he shifted to avoid putting pressure on his backside. 

"He's obsessed with penetration," she said in disgust. 

"He's just really anal," he said in a fake American accent, and she smiled. He lay down instead, and she did too, facing him. It was all they had, their company. You had to take your strengths where you could, she decided.

* * *

She'd expected Ferenc not to take her refusal to co-operate at face value, but to her surprise, and no small relief, she was no longer forced to participate in Methos' torture. Apart from the small personal satisfaction it gave her, there was no other relief to be exacted from the changed routine. A couple of hours after she'd revived from her own torture session, Michel came for Methos, clubbing him brutally to the ground and hauling him out. 

She didn't see anyone for a very long time after that — she suspected, possibly, for days. She wasn't even fed. Again her stomach cramped, screaming for food, but as time passed the cramps dwindled until they vanished entirely, her body growing used to the fact of starvation. 

She was dozing as best she could on the cold concrete when she heard the door. In her confusion, she thought it was her own cell being opened, but even as she cringed against the far wall, she realised it was Methos being returned to his cell. He wasn't just flung to the ground — Michel spent some time arranging chains and then, to her shock, Methos was bound against their shared wall, his body spread-eagled hard against the mesh. He was unconscious, his cheek turned to her. Michel grinned at her and then left the cell briefly, returning with a bucket of water which he flung all over Methos, splashing her as well. 

The older immortal woke with a gasp, clearly confused as to his position. His eyes were dull, and the deep circles under them, which Immortality could do nothing to remove, told her that he had had no chance to sleep while he had been gone from the room. His breathing was strained — all his weight was being carried by his suspended arms, his feet dangling in their outspread position. 

She expected him to be left that way — Ferenc seemed to enjoy inventing new ways of tormenting Methos without his needing to be present — but unfortunately for her, there was a new twist to their cruelty. Michel came into her cell bearing chains and manacles. She was grabbed and jerked over to the mesh wall, and then the brute used his superior weight and strength to press her against it while manacles were fixed. She was spread like Methos, mirroring his position, except her feet were left on the ground, a small mercy she was sure was not intended to be one. 

But then, to her surprise, they were left alone. Being shorter than him, and raised less high, she faced his chest, just under his collarbone. "Methos?" she whispered. She knew he was awake, but his reactions seemed dazed and slow. "Methos? Are you all right?" 

She heard his brief laugh through the walls of his chest. "Define 'all right'," he said in a strained voice. His chest was already heaving against the unnatural stress the suspended position was placing on his muscles. 

She knew she should say something, but it was so obvious that he had been through a nightmarish session, that there was nothing to look forward to but more of the same, and there was nothing she could do to ameliorate his condition or her own, that she was silenced by the hopelessness of it all. Then she remembered the last time she'd seen him. Maybe there was something she could do. 

"Methos?" He grunted. "Did you hear about the little moron who walked through a screen door and strained himself?" 

His head moved sharply as he tried to see her face. "What?" 

"You know? 'Strained himself'." She waited, and was rewarded with a tiny chuckle. "What's black and white and extremely dangerous?" 

"Cassandra, are you feeling all right?" 

"Fine, thank you. A magpie with a machine gun." 

A croaked laugh. "You're crazy." 

"You should know. So what goes 'black white, black white, black white'?" 

Silence. "A newspaper." 

Damn. His mind was slowing down. "No, dummy. A nun rolling down a hill." She was the adoptive mother of an eight-year-old girl. She had a million of these. 

She kept it up until he stopped replying, his breathing too laboured for him to laugh any more, but when she stopped, he wheezed out, "More?" so she did. 

Until Michel returned with Ferenc. While his lover watched, Michel took her anally, tearing her with his unlubricated thrusting, making her cry out again and again against her wishes. It took her back to the horsemen's camp, Methos fucking her for all to see. But he'd always used her cunt, never her arse — no one had done that, and it hurt more than she had ever imagined it could. The raw pain stopped her escaping into the safety of her mind, and all she could do was endure. 

When Michel was done, Ferenc used a horsewhip on Methos. Dully she wondered if he was really even aware of what was happening. Despite his brief revival earlier, he seemed to be concentrating solely on drawing air into his lungs, and Cassandra doubted he knew he was supposed to add to her humiliation, or hers to his. She felt a fresh curl of contempt for Ferenc's crude, and unsuccessful, attempt to manipulate their emotions. He should have seen the Horsemen in action, she thought. They really knew how to terrorise their victims. 

They were left in position, facing each other, only the wire mesh separating them. She had already healed, and after a few minutes, he too returned to himself. "Are you all right?" he asked quietly, and then she realised he hadn't been out of it as much as she thought. 

"Yes. You keep asking me that." 

"So do you." 

"Let's stop." 

"Suits me." His voice wasn't strong. 

"So, do you know many 'knock knock' jokes?" 

"This is the real torture, yes?" A smile tugged at one corner of his mouth.

* * *

That was the last conversation of any length they had for many days. Michel set them free after a few hours, but Methos was taken away again. This time he was returned much sooner, bloodied and barely conscious. Michel bound his hands behind his back, threw a bucket of water over him, and left him on the floor, before coming into her cell to rape her again. But he left food for her, and to her surprise, for Methos — a bowl of something sludgy. He was uninterested in it, despite hardly having eaten the whole time he'd been here, which worried her. 

"Eat, Methos." 

"Tired," he whispered. "Let me sleep, please," he begged. 

"You need the food." 

"Later...." To her frustration, he curled up and did apparently sleep. 

Was he giving up? What about all this 'while there's life there's hope' crap? She felt a perverse desire to wake him, just to prove to herself that he was still trying to survive even though it all seemed so hopeless. If he was still alive, then she had twice the chance of getting out of this. 

With a shock, she realised she was counting him on her side, but then she shrugged mentally. He'd shown himself to be, even when she rejected him. For now, she would take that at face value. It might be different if they ever met with swords in their hands. 

All she could do was eat her own bowl of slush, and wait for long hours while he slept, twitching and calling out names. It was then that she divined his secret — his love for the missing Highlander — and much that had puzzled her became clear. At one time, she would have been enraged to discover that Methos dared to sully Duncan with his affections, but she was so tired and worn out now, all she felt was sadness. That it was for both of them surprised her less than she might have thought. 

He did wake, and struggled over to the plastic bowl to eat the food like a dog would have to, but he was slipping away now, she saw. Days — weeks? — without enough food or sleep, the constant harassment and pain and torment were taking a severe toll. She tried to keep him awake, to talk to him, and he tried to respond, but he began to mumble more than speak, and he obviously found it hard to keep concentration enough to finish a sentence of more than a few words. 

It was painful to see him being broken down, but what worried her even more was that Michel was clearly becoming bored. If he was losing interest in tormenting Methos, Ferenc could not be far behind — and what happened when he lost enough interest, Cassandra hardly dared think. 

It felt as if a whole day passed while Methos was left alone, but finally their two tormentors returned. Once again, Methos was tied up in the cell and abused right there, as if they were hoping that his reactions might be stronger with an audience. But Methos scarcely responded during the whole ordeal, as if it was someone else who was being manhandled and tortured. 

Clearly frustrated by the non-responsiveness of his victim, Michel lost his temper completely. After cutting Methos down, he began beating him, laying into him with fists and feet. Ferenc snorted and walked out, as if annoyed by the crudity of the activity. That angered Michel even more, and Cassandra thought she was going to see Methos literally torn apart. He died, revived and was killed again before Michel's fit ended. She was terrified Michel would turn on her next, but he crashed his way out of the cell, slamming the door and leaving them in peace. Of a kind anyway. 

She sat, face pressed against the wall, willing him to revive and speak, to prove he was still there. An Immortal of his age should always revive faster than a new Immortal, but even Immortality could only go so far. It seemed a very long time before he gasped back into life, and even longer before he was aware of his surroundings. If they were suddenly freed by some miracle, he would lose to the very first Challenger, she well knew it. 

As she watched, he crawled slowly over to her, bruises still healing on his body, and his skin covered in his own blood. He lifted a hand to the wall separating them, and even though they could not touch, she understood that he needed some sort of connection. As her hand mapped his, he whispered, "I can't do this any more." 

"You have to, Methos. You're Immortal. Don't give up." 

"Why?" he asked in a weak voice. "I'm tired of trying to be strong." 

"Don't be strong, just don't give up." 

"Never expected to hear you say that to me." His eyes lifted to hers, but she couldn't read his expression behind the straggly beard and the dirt and the weariness. 

"Well, me either. But when you die, they're going to get rid of me." 

He closed his eyes and lowered his hand. "I thought.... Stupid, stupid...." 

She waited, but it was clear that he was finished. "What did you think?" 

"That you might have come to forgive me. Stupid, arrogant of me...." 

He rolled on his back and she cursed herself. She wasn't ready to say the words, she wasn't sure how she felt, and knew she certainly wasn't strong enough to deal with those emotions, but absurdly she didn't want him to die thinking she hated him as she once did. "Methos, you're very old. Your life is important. Not just to you. What about Duncan? What about Joe Dawson? Will you give all that up?" 

"Who cares? What difference does it make? A day, a week. He's tiring of the game, Cassandra. We both know how this ends. I'm ready for that now." 

"You would abandon me again?" 

He opened his eyes and looked at her sideways. "As I recall, you abandoned _me_." 

"I escaped." 

"You left me." 

She gaped. He was close to death and he still saw her time in his captivity in this deluded manner. "Was I supposed to stay with you out of affection?" 

"Am I supposed to stay now because you care?" he said, his weak voice not hiding the sharpness of his response. 

"Stay because you owe me, Methos. You owe me for your sins." 

"And if I do, is my penance over? Will you forgive me then?" 

Her answer stuck in her throat. He needed this. He had nothing left, she knew that. Duncan was missing. His lover was dead. He had little — no, no hope at all — of surviving. All there could be would be a slight prolonging of his life, if they could keep the spark alive a little longer. Her lie would only hold for a few days, a couple of weeks, maybe. But she still couldn't say it. 

"No, Methos. I can't." He made a little sound of distress, rolled over, and began to crawl slowly away. "Wait!" she cried. He kept moving. "Methos, give me some time. Live long enough to let me forgive you." 

He stopped in the middle of the floor and laboriously hauled himself into a sitting position. It was clearly a burden for him to hold his head up, to sit upright, and his face was miserable. He could no longer pretend insouciance as he had done for so long. "Three thousand years, Cassandra. I hurt you for four months three thousand years ago, and you want more time? I'm sorry. We've run out of time. It's too late for me. And I am more sorry than you can know about that." 

She clutched at the mesh, but had no words to answer him. He turned on his butt, and crawled over to the far wall. He curled up, facing away from her, and spoke no more to her. 

_Would it have killed me to lie? Am I so intent on my revenge that I would torment a dying man?_ She watched him sleep, or pretend to sleep, for a very long time. She wanted to say the words, but they would not come. Three thousand years of conditioning meant she could not turn the other cheek to her enemy because he wished it. Not even if she did. And she began to understand, a little, how hard it had been for Methos to overcome thousands of years of brutalisation and rigid thinking to become the civilised man she had to admit he was now. But she still could not say those few words that might give him a little peace.

* * *

They spoke little after that, but then he barely reacted to anything any more. He didn't struggle when Michel came for him, and his silence in the face of the torture carried out in the cell seemed to serve only to drive the bastard to greater heights of sadism. The only good thing, if one could call it that, was that, in concentrating on getting a reaction out of Methos, Michel mostly left her alone. 

She never saw Ferenc any more, which was a bad sign, she felt. And they no longer left the lights on in the cells except when Michel was actually in the room. The darkness and the lack of food were causing her to hallucinate. The only times Methos spoke to her was when she was calling out after a nightmare, or when she began to talk to herself. Then he would call her name softly until she confirmed she was okay, and then he would retreat into the blackness. He dreamed too, but she was afraid of what he might admit he was dreaming about, so she could never return the favour. 

It couldn't last, she knew, and as she feared, Ferenc's interest finally wore out. 

The lights were snapped on to full brightness and Michel and Ferenc came into Methos' cell. It seemed like it might have been days since she had seen the older Immortal, although she had lost any sense of time while in captivity. He looked like a dirty, thin ghost, and he barely bothered to look at his tormentors. 

Michel seized Methos' hair, as he had hers so often, and dragged him to the middle of the cell. To her horror, she realized that Michel was carrying a sword. 

_No!_ But she said nothing aloud; it was as if her vocal cords were paralysed. 

"I'm tired of this," Ferenc announced. "This is your last day on earth, Methos. The cunt is going to be sold, and then I can get back to dealing with real people." He grasped Methos' hair and yanked him into an upright kneeling position. "Say goodbye to the bitch." 

She could see him trembling — even at this extremity, he was apparently still afraid to die — but he didn't beg, or argue. He looked across the wire grill to her. "I'm sorry," he whispered. 

"No! Methos, I want you to live!" That she was echoing MacLeod's words of a few months before only came to her later, but the sad expression in his eyes told her that he knew he had nothing left to live for. "Methos! Please, I will forgive you!" 

He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them. _Too late,_ she saw him mouth, and then Ferenc laughed. 

"Is this the most touching thing I've ever seen? The slave and the slave master, reconciled at last? Kronos would laugh himself sick. Michel, do it." 

She clutched at the wire barrier, watching in frozen horror as Ferenc held Methos up by his hair for Michel's convenience. "Just think, bitch, you're going to get some of his Quickening. A little repayment, don't you think?" 

"I don't _want_ his Quickening! Please, I'll do anything you want, just let him live!" 

Ferenc smirked. "Slut, you'll do anything I want whatever I do." 

"No!" she screamed as the sword swung and Ferenc released Methos' hair. For a moment, all she saw was the falling head, and it was only after that that she heard the thump — a single thump, not a double one — she realized that it was still attached to his body. There was a deep slash across his throat and he was unconscious, but he was alive. 

"You bloody bastard!" she yelled furiously, not caring what Ferenc's response to her outburst might be. 

"Language, bitch. I thought you wanted him to live!" 

She had no answer to this. She was absolutely certain that Ferenc had planned to do this before he'd walked in the door — another cruelty heaped on all the others. She stared at him in disgust at this latest proof of his inhumanity. 

"But it's interesting that you care for him after all," he continued. "Makes me think there might be possibilities of you two making a pretty pair for the right buyer. But he's too much trouble." He walked over to the mesh. "This time, it wasn't real. Next time, it will be. Don't get used to him." 

She pounded the mesh in anger but he laughed and walked out. This time they left the lights on. 

Methos hadn't moved — the wound was deep, but hardly fatal even for a mortal. He'd fainted from shock, she guessed. 

She thought she had plumbed the depths of horror, but now she was forced to look at the darkness in herself. She had once wanted to kill this man. Now she could let him die without the words of forgiveness that might let his soul at least pass peacefully to the other side? What sort of person did that make her? What sort of _healer_ did that make her? 

"Methos," she called. Nothing, so she repeated it. Over and over until she saw his body twitch, and then shake convulsively as he woke. Reaction, she supposed. 

"Methos, you are alive," she said, using all the power of the Voice she could muster. "You will be well. You must wake up now, and be calm." 

Even though he was susceptible to her powers, it took a worryingly long time before he roused, and dragged himself over to the wire barrier. Never had she been so desperate to touch someone in her life, to try and impart a little comfort. The bleakness in his eyes shocked her more than what had gone before. He was empty. She wondered if he could ever be filled again. 

Still, she tried. "You're still alive, there's hope," 

"For now," he said, dully. "I'm sorry — I've given him another weapon." 

"Forget that," she said impatiently. "Methos, you can't just give up. Not for me, for you. You have to live. Damn you — I need you to be alive." 

His mouth opened and closed again, before he finally got the words out. "Why? I'm the person you hate most in the whole world...." 

"Not any more...." Even as she spoke the words, she marvelled at them — not least because they were true. 

He rubbed his face tiredly. "Someone you hate, then. I've done you nothing but harm, and I've brought this upon you. Why the hell would you want me to live? I can't delay them selling you more than a couple of days, maybe a week at most." 

Exhausted, he slumped, and lay down on the floor, his arm over his eyes against the glare of the light. 

"I need you... I need you to be there for me to forgive, Methos." 

"And how long will that take?" he asked wearily. 

"To do it properly? An Immortal lifetime. Yours and mine, Methos." He pulled his arm away from his face and looked at her, expressionless. "What I mean is, that I can only understand and forgive you with your help. I _want_ to forgive you. My hate has done me great harm. I want to set it aside, but I can't do it alone." 

He reached his hand to the mesh and she placed hers against it. "I would gladly give you what you want, but I don't have very long, whatever we do." 

"Then let us live for however long we have, in peace. Methos, if you died today, I would never heal, I know that now. Will you give me that healing?" 

"Whatever I can, Cassandra," he whispered. "Tell me what you need to hear, what I need to do." 

She took a deep breath. "Tell me about the Horsemen, and how you came to be with them. Tell me why you took me, why you let me go. Why you stayed, why you left. Tell me who you are, Methos." 

"You don't want much, do you?" he said with a slight quirk of his lips. 

"I want everything, Methos."

* * *

"So what changed? Why did you leave?" she asked when his soft voice faltered and seemed unlikely to resume. 

"You changed it." His voice gained a little strength. "Not immediately. But you were the first taste I'd had in a thousand years of intimacy with a woman who could be my equal. Of anyone who wasn't holding a threat over my head. I couldn't settle down after that." 

"Equals?" Her laugh was a bitter bark. "How could we possibly be equals, Methos? I was your slave!" She couldn't believe he was still deluding himself this way. 

"Only by circumstance," he said steadily, lifting his head to look into her eyes. "You were unlucky, but you are not a natural victim. You were the first Immortal woman I'd met who didn't lose her head within minutes, and you were the first slave to best Kronos. First person, actually. You made me realise that what we were, what we had, wasn't inevitable. It wasn't even desirable." He shrugged. "And once the rot set in, it wasn't long before I started to look seriously for ways to leave. It took me a while. I lost heart for a while, things could be too comfortable for me to feel too worried about changing them, and then Kronos would turn psycho again and I would remember you. You destroyed the Horsemen long before they died." 

Cassandra stared at him. Something in her wanted to accept his words as the truth. "You _made_ me a victim," she reminded him. "Do you really expect me to believe all that, even if...." She had been about to say 'if you do', but cut herself off just in time. 

He didn't look at her. "I lied to MacLeod," he said in the low voice they always used when the Highlander's name came up. 

The mention of her beloved Scot made her anger flare again. "Yes, you said you didn't know me, you bloody coward!" 

He waved a tired hand, dismissing the comment. "Yes, of course," he said a little impatiently, "did you expect me to let you cut my head off? No, you don't know about this. He confronted me, demanded to know if what you had said was true. I told him it was, which was the truth. But I said to him that you were nothing, and that was not the truth. I've just spent a long time pretending that I did it all myself, denying that I owed anything to anyone for my redemption. I always hated that Darius had a 'get out of jail' free card because of his Light Quickening. It isn't that easy for the rest of us murderers. But you were my Light Quickening, Cassandra." 

Cassandra was scarcely aware that she blinked at those last words. She felt a surge of anger — then she remembered that she was once again letting him control her reactions, and carefully restrained it. Winning an argument wasn't the idea here. 

Instead, she took a deep breath, and only asked, "And how did you leave the Horsemen? How long did it take after I escaped?" _And how many more innocent people had to die at his hands, and the hands of his companions?_ she wondered. 

"I wanted to live, Cassandra. And as you say, I am a great coward. It took me a hundred years to get away from them, and I only really tried once other raider bands grew up and threatened our territories on all sides. We being so small a group, we were vulnerable. We began to restrict our ambitions, rather than face annihilation, and Kronos grew bored. Caspian and Silas had already gone, but Kronos was more possessive of me, he always had been, and he knew he could get the others back if he wanted." He laughed, a bitter sound. "He knew once I left, I would never return." 

"But how. ..?" 

"Poisoned him and sealed him in a well on Holy ground," he answered matter-of-factly. "He wasn't a happy Horseman." 

"And yet," she observed bitterly, "you let him live. Never mind how many people he hurt and killed afterwards. And then... you joined him again, didn't you?" 

He stared at her as if he couldn't understand her point, but then he grimaced. "It was all about survival, Cassandra. I'm not you — I don't believe in your gods, or that I will earn a place in heaven by dying well. I am terrified of the emptiness of death, of the waste. I will do anything to live. Or so I used to think, anyway." 

"You've changed your mind?" 

His mouth twitched. "Maybe _you've_ changed my mind." 

He didn't sound serious and she refused to be distracted. "Kronos," she repeated. 

"I offered him Caspian and Silas because he was about to kill me for not killing MacLeod. In my foolishness, I thought it might distract him long enough to let me make another plan. And foolishly, I thought I could control them as I once had. But I was no longer Kronos' favourite. He no longer trusted me. I was as much his prisoner as you were, Cassandra." 

The taste of futility filled her mouth. He was never going to admit to her what he truly was; she should know that by now. "He trusted you enough to let you make their plans. He trusted you with holding me captive once again." She thought for a moment even as she awaited his reply, wondering what question she could ask him that would _truly_ heal her, truly make her three-millennia old wounds begin to heal at last. 

"Because he knew me as I was," he said with a little more passion. "I know you think I deny my own nature. Believe me, Cassandra, I live with the nightmares of who I was, what I did, every day. You think I forgot?" His voice got a little louder as he became agitated. "Do you think I was mad for a thousand years? I wasn't. I was Kronos, I was Silas, I was Caspian, all they were and worse. But I was also Methos. And there was enough left from that thousand year killing spree to sense that you were different, and to want that goodness. All I knew was how to try and despoil it, but I knew it was there." 

"You helped him." 

He shook his head. "Not as much as you think. He was watching me, but there were things I could do — the virus he was so proud of only needed to be heated for ten minutes and it became as dangerous as water. Mac was defusing a harmless device, apart from the explosives. But I couldn't let him know that, or Kronos. As for you — that was unexpected. I didn't realise Kronos knew you and Mac were in Bordeaux — not until it was too late and he'd caught you. The great evil mastermind fucked up again." 

Cassandra stared at him. She could see no sign of the master schemer, the head, the brains of the Horsemen, in the pale face of the man before her — only exhaustion and resignation. There were bruise-dark circles under his eyes, making his face almost skull-like, as if the continued torture were reducing his body to its bony essentials. 

He could be telling the truth. He could really be changed. "And what if Kronos had taken my head? What if he'd ordered you to do it?" 

He buried his face in his hands for a moment and then glared at her with unexpected anger. "What do you really want, Cassandra?" he shouted, his voice holding a rising edge of hysteria. "Did you expect me to die for you? I did everything I could to keep you alive. But if Kronos had stood there, with gun and sword to my head and there was absolutely no escape, yes, I would have killed you. Short of that, I would have tried to save you. My dying would not have benefited either of us in that situation. I'm sorry," he said, his voice cracking. "I can't tell you I love you, I can't say I'm goodness incarnate, I can't make your pain disappear, or give life back to your people. There's nothing I can do. Nothing. It's too late. Too...." 

He turned away suddenly. "I wanted.... Cassandra," he whispered, "it's just too late for me." 

"Too late for you to be a decent human being? Or just too late to save your life?" And then what he'd said just before that struck her. "You wanted... what?" 

He heaved a great sigh and turned back to face her. "I had this delusion there might be a chance to... to make you understand. And then you wouldn't hate me." On unsteady legs, he pushed himself up the wall to stand, swaying. "It's stupid of course. The Jews couldn't forgive a Hitler. Why should you ever forgive me?" He walked to the far corner of his cell and slumped to the floor, and closed his eyes, for all the world as if he was fast asleep. 

Cassandra stared at his slumped shoulders. For a long time she simply looked, feeling a dozen swirling emotions slowly settle in her mind. 

When they did, something welled up in their place, something defined, resolved... _He's telling the truth_ , she thought. A part of herself scolded her for being so gullible as to believe him even now; but she was no longer convinced that it was the voice of wisdom, of experience or reason. He had no more reason to lie; it didn't make sense. 

She had meant to ask more, precisely what she wasn't sure. But her lips wouldn't move. She needed time, she thought. Time to absorb this. Time to consider whether this perception, this powerful suspicion that he was, after all, telling the truth, was real or just a product of her own exhaustion and vulnerability and his manipulation. 

His eyes opened suddenly; he stared at her. "Cassandra, why don't you get some sleep?" he said gently. "God knows you've had enough to put up with today." 

Like him, she was exhausted. No, exhaustion would be an improvement at this point, she thought. She needed rest; she couldn't think clearly about what he had said until she'd had some sleep. "I suppose you're right," she said, and gritted her teeth. "But we're not done." 

"I thought it was too much to hope for," he said dryly and she almost grinned. 

She lay down, trying to arrange herself in the position of least discomfort, with her back turned to him, and closed her eyes. But sleep took longer.

* * *

For all that, the first thing on their minds when they woke was not more soul-searing revelation, but the food that had been dumped into their cells. A couple of apples each, but they tore into them hungrily. He had no water in his cell, and had to be reliant on the occasional cups provided with, or instead of the food. For that reason, she forbore from washing the apples down with the water _she_ had — it seemed too cruel to drink when he could not. 

Methos finished his meagre meal, rubbed at the encrusting dirt on his face and sighed. "Now if only I could use the Voice on Michel, we might have had a chance of getting out of here." 

A short, sharp nervous bark of laughter escaped Cassandra. It was partly the very notion of Methos knowing how to use the Voice — she'd already thought about, and dismissed this possibility long before. "You? The Voice?" 

"I'm assuming someone taught you — could you teach me? I speak both the bastard's languages." 

The urge to laugh vanished as if it had never been. Cassandra stared at him, tardily comprehending. In all the turmoil of their torments, and the emotions being near him had raised, she hadn't even thought of this. "Why the hell didn't you suggest this before?" 

"Because you could hardly bear to speak to me without spitting, and because I've been otherwise occupied," he said with a hint of sarcasm. "Are you saying it can be done? You can teach me?" 

She sighed. 

"It took me twenty years to learn it, Methos," she said carefully. "There is no way I can teach you in a few days." But maybe she could _try_ , she thought with a burst of irrational hope. 

She thought she probably hallucinated the light bulb over his head, but she didn't imagine the theatrical slap to his head he gave himself. "I'm an utter moron. I can teach _you_ Russian. Enough to control him, I'm sure." 

Cassandra blinked, the spark of hope flaring into life again. Still, she wouldn't let herself feed it, not when it might die again. "I'm not certain it would work," she said, her words still more careful. "I've never tried it that way before." 

"Look, is there anything special about what you say? It's the tone of voice, right?" He was beginning to become animated, the most excited he'd been since he had first arrived. "You could even practice on me, since I speak the languages. Would you try?" Then his expression darkened, as if he remembered to whom he spoke. "You probably think I'm trying to trick you again. Ah, forget it." He turned away and seemed absorbed in flicking the dried blood off his arm. Ferenc was no longer forcing her to bathe him and he was filthy. 

'Oh, no, you don't!' she thought desperately. _You don't get out of it that easily._ "I'm willing to try, if you are." 

The power she had to raise his spirits with a simple act of agreement made her think that if she didn't know better, she'd think he was hungry for affection. Perhaps she didn't know better. He was pathetically eager in his response. "Yes, after all, what do we have to lose? What do you want to do? Can you just say, 'drop dead, you mother fucker,' and he has a heart attack?" 

Cassandra almost laughed again. Gods, if only it were that easy. "No, I can't kill with the Voice, not directly," she answered, thinking about solutions. "But maybe... I could get him to let us go, unlock your bonds — or open the door. I could even get him to give us the keys." 

Methos gave her a genuine smile, for what seemed the first time since they'd come here. "What about getting him to fight Ferenc, or even stab him in the back once they're alone? Is that possible?" 

She shook her head. "No, the person has to be in my line of sight. Which means — once we get started, we'd better move quickly. As soon as one of us gets loose, we'll have to deal with him somehow so he can't come after us. Knock him unconscious or kill him." 

"He carries the keys to my cuffs with him, and the door card. I'm almost certain he wears a leg knife. If we can make him... let's say, go to sleep, or not struggle, one of us can knock him out. So, what do I need to teach you to do that?" 

She frowned at him. "It's not as simple as that, Methos. I'll have to sound natural, unaccented. Is your Russian that good?" 

"You'll have to take my word that it is," he said with a little irritation, which reassured her in a way. If he was trying a scam, then he would be trying to ingratiate himself, not piss her off. 

She thought only a moment longer. "Okay. Let's try it," she said. "First, I need to know a phrase like 'Unlock us both, and give me the key.'" 

He shook his head. "Too risky. If there's the least doubt about the strength of your control, then if he has to move from one cell to another, he might wake up. Maybe, unlock the prisoner, and cuff yourself?" 

She smothered the little burst of annoyance at his doubts. He was right; they couldn't risk the slightest chance of a failure. "Yes, that might be better. Let's try that." 

"All right. Listen carefully." Then he said something that sounded suspiciously like someone chewing a mouth full of gravel. 

"You're kidding — that's impossible!" 

"It is if you see it as individual words. Think of it as learning a song by ear." Not something, actually, she'd ever been able to do. He read her expression correctly and covered his face. "Don't tell me. You're tone deaf too? What is it about me and tone deaf Scots?" 

"I am not!" she protested. "But I'm not sure I can pronounce it. Repeat it, more slowly." She leaned forward intently, trying to listen still more carefully. 

"Okay, now." He said it again, but she shook her head. 

"No good. I need to know what each word means. Do a translation, word by word." 

"But you don't _need_ to know the meaning!" 

"Just humour me, Methos. You are a rotten teacher, you know that?" 

She took a certain spiteful delight in the indignant expression that put on his face, but was careful not to let it show to her own, schooling herself to keep a mask of careful patience. 

Despite his indignation, he dissected the short phrase, and she repeated each word, trying to copy his exact inflection. "Now, try the whole thing. Listen," he ordered. And it was a little easier this time. 

She was beginning to get the idea, she thought. She had him repeat the whole phrase again. And again. 

"Much better," he said, after the fourth time. "Maybe... here's an idea. I teach you another phrase, something _I_ can do, and you learn it, and when we think you're ready, try using the Voice on me to make me do it. Okay?" 

She nodded. "All right. It'll have to be something you would resist doing — you know, you could be trying to trick me, you'll know what I'm saying." 

"To what end, Cassandra?" he snapped, and she shrugged. "Okay, learn this." He said a phrase. 

"What does that mean?" 

"Never you mind. Just repeat it." She did so, and nothing happened. "Again." Still nothing. Finally, upon the fifteenth repetition, he slapped himself in the balls and yelled. 

She stared in shock at what he'd just done — he wasn't feigning the agony, he still clutched his groin as if his balls were going to fall off — and then she had to laugh. "What's so fucking funny?" he gritted out. 

"I was just thinking of the hours of endless fun I can have, if I can do that to you." 

He winced, but then he smiled. "Listen, unless you want me to teach you something that makes Michel do something utterly disgusting, you leave my privates alone!" 

"Don't blame me, it was your idea." But then she realised the implication of what had happened. "It worked!" 

He grinned a little, although he winced again at the pain he'd caused himself. "Yes, it did. Do you believe me now?" 

"Teach me more. Now!" 

It wasn't the most scientific of experiments — yes, she could make Methos do things in Russian, but she had no guarantee, other than the fact he had nothing to gain, that he wasn't acting. But he worked himself, and her, into exhaustion and finally she begged him to stop. "I can't take in any more. I can't remember what we did earlier." She felt panic begin to rise — what if she tried this and it failed? We'll never get another chance, she realised. 

"You'll be fine," he soothed. "Try to sleep. With any luck we won't be interrupted, and we can try later." 

It was the very lack of contact with her captors which worried her. "He's planning something," she said. "He's bored with us. I think he's really going to take your head next time." 

"Yes," he said seriously. "That's why we need to hurry. But this can't work when you're tired. You need your strength to use the Voice, yes?" 

"Yes," she admitted. It drained her more than she would ever tell him. 

"Then sleep," he said gently. "Just for a while." 

If someone had told her six months ago she could sleep at his command — and do so feeling oddly comforted by his presence — she have cursed them for a fool. But nonetheless, she could and did sleep, as well as she could manage on the concrete. 

But when she woke he was gone.

* * *

She paced in panic for a while, but she was too tired and weak to keep it up, so finally she gave up and sat, her arms wrapped around her legs, trying to keep warm, and trying not to think about what would happen if Methos had been taken to be killed. She was _almost_ certain Ferenc wouldn't want her to miss such a spectacle, but she had also thought he had done playing with Methos. Her thoughts chased each other crazily. She was almost insane with worry when footsteps and the sounds of a body being dragged filled the corridor again. 

The door of the next cell opened, and Methos was flung into it. Michel ran in after him and began to beat the semiconscious man viciously, pulping his face. 

She clutched at the mesh, heart hammering. What were the words. ..? Could she do this? _Should_ she? 

**//Stop!//** she shouted. No effect — he didn't even turn. She tried again, and to her amazement, the thug went still, dropping Methos to the floor, straightening up. He looked startled, then lost all expression. 

Gods, what now? "Um...." _That's it!_ **//Cuff yourself!//** She repeated the command. 

Michel's face was blank as he slowly removed the cuffs from his pocket and put them on his wrists. 

Methos' face was not yet fully healed, but he didn't wait a second before throwing himself at Michel and knocking him down. Michel squirmed and thrashed, coming out of his trance. 

Methos yelled a Russian phrase at her, and she remembered. _Do not struggle._ She said it, and Michel's struggles ceased like a puppet whose strings had been cut. 

Feverishly, Methos searched him and found a knife. "Hurry!' she yelled, but he slit Michel's throat even as she spoke. More blood, not his own, spattered on his healing face. 

"Quickly, Methos — let me out," Cassandra called. 

Methos went through the man's pockets and extracted the door card, then set her free. They stood in the corridor, still shaking with reaction. If he felt like her, he scarcely believed that they were free, that it had worked. 

"Now, what do we do?" she asked. "Ferenc will come." 

"We'll do better out of here, for sure. Ready?" 

She nodded, and he led the way out. 

Walking any distance was surprisingly difficult — her muscles had become weak after being confined for so long. He was in no better shape, and they staggered up the corridor. 

The direction was obvious — there was only one door at the end of the corridor, which the key card unlocked. Beyond it proved to be a flight of stairs. Getting up them was a major ordeal, but at the end they were rewarded: they stepped through the door at the top into a normal room, with a draped window looking outside. They blinked in the sudden sunlight. 

Pushing aside the drapes and looking through the window, Cassandra gazed out upon a snowy meadow. Beyond it was a landscape of white, pine-forested mountains. 

The room itself was large and light, with a sofa, two leather-padded easy chairs and a small table with a lamp on it. Seeing normal items of domesticity after all they had been through almost made her cry, but there was no time for that. Ferenc could return at any moment. 

Methos was intent on finding a weapon. He exulted quietly as he found his Ivanhoe and his gun in the living room, casually shoved onto a sideboard. 

"Yes!" he said. "Now, where is he?" 

"You're mad. We need to get of here." 

Something of his old haughty look came into his expression. "And where is 'here', Cassandra? We need to make sure he doesn't come after us. Let's find something to wear." 

They quickly found the bedroom and dressed hastily in what they assumed were Ferenc's own clothes, Methos holding the gun ready in case they felt the brush of Presence, but there was none. He told her to look through the house while he checked if there was a vehicle in any garage, and disappeared outside. 

She looked for an office and found it, along with security monitors observing the hall to the cells, the outside of the house — and the road leading up, or so she presumed. Just as Methos had predicted, there was no monitor that showed the interior of the cells. 

There was a light flashing under the screen showing the road, but the lettering was in Cyrillic and she couldn't read it. She looked around at the bewildering array of screens — and saw, in another monitor, a car driving down a road somewhere outside. Her heart froze — Ferenc! It must be. 

She bolted out of the room, calling "Methos! He's coming back!" in case he was somewhere within hearing, and ran down the hall in the direction he had gone. 

A worrying minute passed and then he was running — well, staggering — through another door into the house. She glimpsed concrete stairs beyond; that must be the garage. 

"No car," he gasped. "What can you see?" 

She dragged him into the office, and it took him only a second to confirm what she had suspected. "That's the road leading up here. We have maybe two minutes. Back to the cells," he ordered, but she resisted his attempt to shove her in the direction he wanted. 

"You're crazy! We'll have our back to the walls there!" 

"And he comes up the path and feels Immortal presence in his house, so he pulls out his gun and shoots us both dead. Does he strike you as someone who plays by the rules? The cells are the only place he won't be suspicious." 

Still, she baulked. "Please, Cassandra, trust me," he pleaded. 

She glared, but he was already taking her arm and pulling her along. He was probably right — in this, he was her superior in experience. 

It was with great reluctance that she accepted Methos' gun and returned to the hated cell she thought she had left forever. He went back to his own cell and, with a great effort, dragged Michel's body to one side of the door, out of the line of sight so it was not immediately obvious when anyone opened it. There was no concealing the huge bloodstain on the concrete, but hopefully Ferenc would assume that was Methos' blood. 

He gave her the key card, and left his own cell's door open. 

There was no time to plan their response — no sooner had they got themselves arranged than she felt Ferenc's Quickening above them in the house. She knew this was their one and only chance. Correction — one of them _might_ escape while the other was being killed, if things went badly — but they had only the one chance to get out together. 

And it was now very important to her that they did. 

She felt light-headed, dizzy with fear. She hadn't eaten for over a day, but still her stomach threatened to turn inside out as she waited for Ferenc to come in. Which cell would he enter? She trained the gun on the door — damn, she hated guns. But Methos was right, she had a better chance with the gun than with the sword, and she could at least distract him with gunfire. 

Steps in the corridor. Her palms were sweaty, but there was no time to wipe them before the door opened. The door of the _other_ cell. 

Methos' face was white in the dim lighting, but he was holding his sword at the ready, apparently calm. Ferenc stepped in — and spotted his lover's body at the same time as Methos swung at him. He wasted no time on being surprised. He dodged, cursing in a language that wasn't English, and used his weight to knock his weakened former prisoner against the wall, then pinning him with his own weight as he began to choke him to death. But he hadn't yet even looked at her. 

With shaking hand, she worked the key card, and ran to the other cell, firing two wild shots as she reached the doorway. Neither bullet hit Ferenc; they dug into the walls, the reports seeming to make the entire cell ring. Ferenc quickly crouched to dodge them, taking his attention off his victim — and that was all Methos needed. Released from the stranglehold, he drove his elbow into Ferenc's jaw, knocking him down. 

Cassandra fired again, hitting Ferenc in the leg, and he fell. As he was struggling to rise again, Methos picked up his heavy sword and swung it. 

She didn't even watch, crouching against the corner and sheltering from the inevitable. But still she screamed as the first bolts of Ferenc's Quickening hit and she was tossed flat. Methos was held rigid as the Quickening tore through him in the dangerously confined space which forced the energies back and around their bodies. Lightning seemed to be everywhere; it seemed to make up the whole universe. 

Visions of Ferenc's sick passions, of Kronos forced themselves into her mind and she struggled to hold on to her sanity, through this last, final agony the bastard inflicted on them. As she screamed again and again with the Quickening, she glimpsed scenes from his life: himself locked in passion with Kronos; countless scenes from countless dungeons and interrogation rooms and cells like this one over the centuries. 

Between the memories of torturing his victims, and the memories of Kronos, she didn't know which was the more sickening. 

And then it was over. Suddenly, as it always was. Methos was curled into a ball, trembling. She was too weak and stunned to move at first, but then she crawled to him, tugging at his shirt. 

"Come on," she whispered out of a throat raw from screaming. "It's over." 

He lifted his head and stared at her with bloodshot eyes, as his hand came up to grab hers. "It's over?" he said dully. 

"Yes," she said gently, seeing he was in shock. "Come, Methos." 

A measure of clarity returned to his eyes. "We really have to stop meeting like this," he whispered. She could only manage a rictus of a smile, but inside she felt hope bubbling up. They were free. Or nearly so. 

They searched — no sign of her sword, or her papers, but his wallet was there, stripped of credit cards and passport which were probably in the black market already. They discovered they had been held not far from Bratislava. "We can get to Austria from here. But we need papers," he said. 

"Can we just bluff our way across the border, take his car?" 

"Look at us, Cassandra — we look and smell like asylum seekers. I think we can do better." He found a telephone, and dialled a number from memory. "Fuck. Wrong number." 

"Methos...." 

"Wait, let me think...." He rubbed a shaky hand over his face — he was right, he looked like shit, so must she. She left him to trying to remember the number and went in search of food. 

The fridge was not well stocked, even though the freezer held riches if they were staying longer, but there was sausage, and some indifferent bread. At least it was fresh. She collected all she could find, and brought water, finding him talking hurriedly on the phone to his friend. "Yes, we'll wait. Joe, the papers need to be good, we'll never schmooze our way in...okay, okay, we'll wait. The number here? Uh...." He looked hastily around, and she helped him find the number of the phone he was calling from. He read it out. "We'll wait for you. Yes. Yes. Bye." 

He hung up, then sat down, his head hanging. "Bad news?" she asked. 

He lifted dull eyes to her. "What? Oh, no. He's going to get Amanda to come and get us, to help us get into Austria and to Vienna. We can both go home then, once we're back in the EU." 

Home. Shona. She too sat down. It was suddenly all too much. "Can we wait here?" 

"I think so. We can make a run for it if we have to, but I would like to wait for them. Do you mind?" 

"No, I suppose a chance to clean and regroup before we deal with Austrian immigration would be a good idea." 

He nodded. He spotted the food and seized a chunk of sausage, gnawing on it without the least embarrassment or ceremony, gulping down water after every bite. Her stomach rebelled at the strong smelling meat, so she ate the bread. 

Or tried. She found herself full in an astonishingly short time, as did he. "Feels like a feast, doesn't it?" he said. 

"Yes. It's more food than I've had in a week... what date is it?" she asked suddenly. "How long have we...?" Impatiently she searched for and found a desk calendar, which had a movable ring for the day but was in Slav. "Read this," she ordered, and when he did, she gasped. "We've been here two _months_?" 

"So it seems," he said grimly. "Joe said as much when I called him. He nearly had a heart attack. He was sure I was dead — or that I'd left town because of Mac." 

"Has he...?" 

"Not a bloody word." They looked at each other, and then, embarrassed by the shared worry and the uncertain feelings she had towards him, she looked away. "Cassandra, we did it. We kept him as safe as we could." 

"Yes." That was something, at least. 

It would be many hours — possibly more than a day before his friends would come. Until then, they were probably safe enough inside the mountaintop home. 

Methos suggested that they make themselves clean and comfortable. Her skin crawled at the thought of using Ferenc's bathroom, let alone his toiletries, but she and Methos were both utterly filthy and would arouse suspicion they could not afford. He also suggested that she bathe first, and after scouring Ferenc's wardrobe for clothes that did not look too ludicrous on a much shorter, much slimmer female, she locked herself in the bathroom. 

The hot water wasn't, particularly, but it was the hottest she had experienced in months, and it left her the warmest and cleanest she had felt in all that time. She washed her hair three times and upon getting out of the bath, was surprised to find a blow-dryer under the sink, of which she made good use. 

By the time she finished, nearly an hour later, she felt reborn. Methos was sitting on a chair, rubbing something with a piece of pale cloth; he smiled when he saw her. "Feeling better?" 

"I like to be clean." He looked away. She knew he knew she was thinking of the Horsemen's camp. Her eye fell on what he was working on — another sword. "One not enough for you?" 

He looked back at her and flushed. "I thought you might want a weapon. I was cleaning it." 

She reached past him and picked the sword up. It was a type not known to her, heavy, not easily wielded without practice; she was not at her physical peak anyway, that was for sure. But it was sharp, and would do the job at a pinch. 

She'd been so close to killing him in Bordeaux. Only the desperation in Duncan's voice had saved his life then. What was to stop her now? Did he think she couldn't do it? She would never have a better chance to carry out her vow. She lifted the sword — and placed it at his neck. 

He stumbled off his chair, moving back hastily, scrabbling for the sword he had retrieved earlier. She didn't follow him. "Are you afraid of me, Methos?" she said calmly. 

His eyes widened. "I cannot let you kill me, Cassandra. Not now." 

He had found his sword, and was holding it defensively across his body. Hah, he looked barely stronger than she did, and she was certain that if she used the Voice, he would be dead soon enough. "Give me a good reason not to try for your head," she said coldly. 

"MacLeod... Duncan. If not for me, for him." She walked forward a little and he backed away. "Cassandra, don't become a killer because of me!" 

She laughed and lowered her sword. "Oh, put it down, you stupid man. Today is not a good day to die. Go and have a bath." 

He stared, looking from the sword to her face and back again, then shook his head as if to clear it. "Did I miss something?" 

"Yes. You missed the fact that I could have killed you where you stood, just by telling you to stand still while I removed your head. With a butter knife, wasn't that your suggestion?" From the look on his face, he was too tired and too battered to appreciate her ironic mood. "Go on, Methos. I will not kill you. Not today." 

"And tomorrow?" 

"Not then, either." 

He lifted his head and looked at her steadily for long minutes. But then he nodded sharply and turned on his heel to head to the bathroom. 

When he'd gone, she felt surprisingly shaky. She decided they should probably delay any further excitement until they had eaten and rested.

* * *

Ferenc's elaborate security system would keep them as safe as it had him, they decided, and after Joe called again to say Amanda would be there in the morning, they locked up the house as best they could. It was still a novelty to be able to choose where they sat, what they ate, and although the larder was depressingly ordinary, they had at least found enough to satiate themselves. Methos discovered a bottle of slivovitz, and poured them a tumbler full each. "Methos, we'll be drunk," she chided. 

"So? I hadn't noticed you'd signed the pledge. Slainte," he said, and then recollected himself. "I'm sorry. I'm probably making you sick." 

He got up and moved away to one of the leather chairs that faced the windows and the mountain scenery beyond, and sat down in it. He gulped the spirit down, and then wrapped his arms around himself, staring out at the rugged peaks, already bearing some early autumn snow. 

She stood for a moment, watching him. She made up her mind once again: she would no longer behave as if he could upset her or repel her. The simple truth was that he could not. 

She picked up the bottle of brandy, and brought it and her own drink over to where he sat. He looked at her in surprise as she set the bottle down and then poured him a fresh drink. 

"Thank you," he said quietly. 

"You're welcome," she replied formally, before settling into the other armchair. Her presence seemed to have struck him dumb, and he picked up the glass and drank from it — more from nervousness than from need, she was sure. 

"Where do you want...?" she started to ask, but then rephrased it. "Where will you go?" 

He looked up from his drink, startled, before forcing his eyes away to look out the window again. "Away. Asia. Australia, maybe." 

"To look for Duncan?" 

"MacLeod is probably dead," he said harshly, and the liquid in his glass vibrated with the slight tremor in his hand. No, not a tremor now, actually shaking. 

"I would know if he were dead, Methos," she said softly. 

He turned to face her. "Are you sure?" he asked, huskily. "Really sure?" 

"Yes. He lives." She put as much sincerity as she could into the words. "I feel he is in pain, for the boy — and something else. But he lives." 

"Thank God," he said softly. 

He pushed the palms of his hands hard against his eyes. She waited, not knowing what was distressing him so, but wanting to help. "Fuck," he said suddenly. "What difference does it make? He and I can never truly be friends, I can't help him, or you. I can't help myself any more." To her shock, he began to weep silently, his hands partly obscuring his face, but not the tears. 

She felt more helpless than back in the cell. "Methos... please, look at me?" 

He uncovered his face slowly, and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. A sobbed breath shook his shoulders. 

For the first time in three thousand years, she allowed herself to really look at him without flinching, without fear, without anger. For the first time in three thousand years, she no longer felt hate for him. No hate at all. She did not even feel any more the place where she had hidden the hate, trying to protect herself from it for so long. 

It felt good... peaceful. A peace she'd never known or imagined. 

He was still crying. 

She leaned forward, and raising her hand, she lifted a rogue tear off his face with an index finger. He flinched a little, but allowed her to touch him. She was sharply reminded of how he had tried to make it easier for her to insert the instruments of torture, even knowing what was about to happen to him. "Why did you never ask for mercy in there? Even from me?" 

" _You_ never did." For a moment, she had no idea what he was talking about... oh... "You made it easy to be cruel to you. I... I...." He fell silent and then stared at her with impossibly wide, wet eyes. Not the eyes of a murderer. But then they never had been, even when he had been one. 

"You were returning the favour? That's... idiotic, Methos." He opened his mouth in surprise. "Whatever made you think anything could make doing that easier?" 

"After Kronos... when you escaped... I vowed I would never hurt you again." 

"You didn't even know who I was," she said, unable to keep the sarcasm out of her voice, but it was from habit. He truly could not hurt her any more, she thought, wonderingly. 

"Yes, I did. I lied." 

"For Duncan?" 

"Yes." 

He could no longer meet her eyes, and looked down at his hands, but then she covered his hand with her own and he raised his head. "Where will _you_ go?" he asked softly. 

"Home. Back to Donan Woods." 

"I didn't realise you still lived there." 

"It's my home, Methos." 

"It must be nice...," he said wistfully. The small movement he made indicated he wanted his hands freed, but she held on and he didn't argue. 

They sat like that for a long time. It had been around three when they had escaped, and six o'clock now. The sun was already low in the autumn sky. Together, they watched it set, and the slivovitz disappeared over the next hour or so. She began to feel lightheaded, but that was only partly because of the alcohol. She hadn't had a decent night's sleep since she was first captured, and that made her yawn and droop. He pulled his hands free gently. 

"We should rest. It will be a long day tomorrow." 

"I don't want to sleep in his bed." 

"I can understand that," he said dryly. "Let me find some pillows and blankets." He indicated the sofa. "This will be better than the floor again." 

She couldn't agree more. 

She went to the bedroom. While he searched for bedding in cupboards, she looked for something she could sleep in, and amazingly, found a drawer full of unopened packets of men's silk pajamas, from Harrods in London. She scooped them all up, took them with her and tossed them onto a chair in the living room. 

"Good God," Methos said, wrinkling his nose. "And here was I thinking that torture was his only fetish." 

"Perhaps the two go together. The owner of Harrods would have liked him, I think." 

"Fayed? He's a complete turd," Methos said with feeling. "I don't know what's worse, wearing Ferenc's stuff — or clothing from that ghastly store." 

"They're probably made by underpaid slave workers in China," she said, handing him a packet. He froze. "Methos, if I can say the word 'slave' without flinching, the least you can do is take it as it was meant." 

"I'm sorry." 

"Will you _please_ stop saying that?" 

"Sorr.... okay," he said, and then grinned a little. 

He made the sofa up without asking, and it was clear it was for her. He would sleep in the chair, and she refused to argue with him about it. As he said, it was better than the floor. 

Restless, Methos made another patrol, checked the alarms again, and the security cameras, but they were quite isolated and quite safe, she felt. "Enough, get some sleep," she ordered, but he deviated to the bar and got some more cheap Russian scotch. She'd had more than enough to drink, and once she'd changed into the pajamas in the bathroom (modesty was perhaps a little late for both of them, but he also changed out of her sight), she sank gratefully onto the couch, the cushioning a blessed relief after concrete. 

He continued to sit, staring out into the total darkness cloaking the mountains, his sword and gun close to him. She looked at him for a long time, but fatigue overcame her and she slept. 

She woke to the sound of screaming and her body was instantly flooded with adrenaline. She groped instinctively for her sword, only remembering after a few seconds that her weapon was not close by — and was not the most useful thing she could have in her hand. She fumbled for the lamp she recalled seeing by the end of the sofa, but knocked it to the floor as she turned it on. The lopsided light revealed the cause of the sound — Methos, writhing in the armchair, in the grip of one of his many nightmares. 

But this time she could do something about that. After freeing herself from the tangled blankets, she went to the chair and called his name. When he didn't respond, she touched his arm — and her hand was suddenly seized in a cruel grip. He stared at her wildly until, like her, he realised where he was. 

He freed her hand instantly. "My god, I hurt you. I'm sorry, Cassandra." 

"It doesn't matter, but you were having a bad dream." 

"Yes." He rubbed his face. "What time is it?" 

She looked around. The only clock she could see said it was 12:04. "Just after midnight. Why don't you find a bed somewhere?" 

He shook his head. "I'm fine. I don't think it makes any difference to how I dream. Unless you think I will keep disturbing you?" 

"I think I can cope, Methos." She righted the lamp, and then picked up the half-empty Scotch bottle. "I don't think this helps." 

"No, maybe not. A bad habit I've fallen into." 

She sat on the armchair near him. "Since Duncan disappeared?" He nodded, without looking at her. 

It was pitiful, really. He was in love with a man who would probably spurn him because of who he had been three thousand years ago. A man who now might be irreparably insane. It was hopeless. 

"Methos...," she said, surprising herself, "you should come to me. Come to Donan Woods." 

He stood. "Are you mocking me, Cassandra?" His voice had gone cold, but his face was a mask of pain. 

"No. We have much to discuss, you and I." She tried to put all her sincerity into her words, her eyes. 

His face twisted. "I will only hurt you. Remember who I am. What I did." 

"You can no longer hurt me," she said steadily. "I remember who you are, what you did." 

"Why?" he said sharply, his body beginning ever so slightly to move into a defensive posture. She recalled that they were two Immortals, with weapons close by and no reason not to use them — at least, not in theory. But it really wasn't important now. 

"Because... I am not a slave," and as she spoke it she knew the simple truth of those words. "I haven't been a slave for thousands of years. What I am — who I am — is a healer. You are in need of my help. I offer it freely." 

Several emotions flitted quickly across his face — but the one that stayed would be branded into her memory for the rest of her long life: utter, simple, heartfelt relief. To her surprise, he knelt on one knee and took her hand. "I don't know if it would be wise to accept your offer, kind though it is. But will you let me offer my... apology?" He shook his head. "Stupid word. There isn't a better. But you must know I am truly sorry. You must believe me." 

"I understand. And I do believe you. I accept your... apology, Methos." She smiled, to show she genuinely meant no harm. He smiled back, but suddenly it was more of a grimace. He was shaking again. "You're cold." 

"I'm scared." 

"You are not alone. You have friends who will support you." 

"And what do I call you, Cassandra? I daren't call you friend." He'd wrapped his arms tightly around himself again, and his voice shook. She put her hand on his shoulder, gently urging him to relax his tense stance. 

"A fellow traveller, Methos. We are two of the oldest living creatures on the planet. That means _something_ , don't you think?" 

"If it does, I've never figured it out," he said with strained humour. He patted her hand, and then stood up again. "I think I'll be all right now. Why don't you go back to sleep?" 

"I will if we can have some hot milk first. " He made a retching sound. "Better than whiskey." 

"Nursery food, Cassandra." 

"Not to me. Humour me?"

* * *

The rest of the night passed peacefully, and she, at least, felt much better when she woke. He was still asleep, his mouth drawn down in a tight grimace. His position didn't look that comfortable, but it was better by far than what they had become accustomed to. The house was warm, the heating automatic, she assumed. She retreated to the bathroom and treated herself to another shower — she wondered if she would ever feel truly clean again. She made the effort to make herself look normal — if they were passing immigration controls, she wanted to look like a harmless tourist, not a desperate escapee from a dungeon. 

He still slept, but while she found coffee and more bread for their breakfast, he came in to the kitchen, dressed and tidily groomed, although anyone looking at his eyes would not see a carefree holidaymaker. "Coffee? I've almost forgotten what it is." 

"Don't get your hopes up — he seems to have had no taste in anything." 

"Including boyfriends." 

"No. Only in prisoners." 

His head lifted sharply at her joke, and then he grinned. He took over the slicing of the bread, and made toast quickly and efficiently. They ate like pigs, stuffing themselves with buttered toast and conserves. Methos even ate some more of the cured meat but apologised when he saw her disgusted look. "Sorry, I've always loved Polish sausage." 

"It stinks." 

"Yes. But I think I've lost all sense of smell after having to live with my stench for so long." 

"Not for any longer," she said grimly. 

He looked down at his plate. "I doubt this will be the last time I'm a captive, just as it was not the first." 

"The worst?" she couldn't help but ask. 

To her ineffable horror, he shook his head. "No." 

"Gods, Methos...." 

He looked up then. "How do you retain the capacity to be surprised at the evil men do, Cassandra? May I have more toast?" 

She passed him the bread, but was speechless. Not the _worst_? 

He didn't speak of it further. They had a couple of hours to kill, and Methos decided he wanted to search the house more thoroughly, just in case Ferenc had left anything around linking them to the house, and so his death, although it was likely the body would lie undiscovered for a long time in the basement where Methos had dragged it the night before. 

They found no more of their possessions, but they _did_ find a secret store with gold, papers for a false identity, and a mountain of American dollars. "That'll compensate Amanda and Joe for their expense. But here, you'll need this to get back to Scotland." He shoved an enormous wad of bills at her. 

"You?" 

"Joe's picking up one of my identities and credit cards. I'm all right," he said matter-of-factly. 

It was a small fortune, and she saw no reason not to put Ferenc's loot to a more peaceful purpose than he would have done. Methos uncovered a moderate-sized army's worth of weapons, which they left untouched apart from taking clips for his gun. She refused to take a pistol for herself — "I can't shoot worth a damn, and I hate the bloody things." 

He shrugged, but made no comment. They closed everything up — Methos didn't bother wiping their prints since neither of them had a record, and it was highly unlikely the Slovak authorities would work too hard to investigate the death of an arms dealer. 

Now all they had to do was wait. Time seemed to move slowly now they were so close to freedom, and she was more than relieved when the phone rang. It was Dawson, telling them to drive to the local airport to meet the 15.53 flight from Vienna. That was six hours away. They needed to leave immediately, since they didn't know the roads or the weather forecast. 

While he plotted the route, she made more coffee to fill a thermos, and packed food — their deprived stomachs could only take small but frequent meals and they both were severely underweight. He'd already checked that the car had petrol and was working. He'd also transferred the gold to the boot of the car, and a couple of warm coats, the swords and a bottle of brandy to the back seat. "For medicinal purposes," he said, and she grinned. 

At last they were to be gone from this hell, even if it was in the company of her enemy. No. No longer an enemy, she thought, with a surprising amount of satisfaction.

* * *

After they got to Bratislava and picked up his friends and the all-important documents they'd brought, it had been only a short journey to Vienna, but one which was more than a little trying. It was almost six before they had got to Vienna. The woman, Amanda, drove, with Methos in the front seat. The old mortal, Dawson, sat in the back with her, and his looks of suspicion had become very tiring after a while. Methos had given them a bare explanation of their kidnapping, and Dawson had filled him in on some inconsequential gossip. Since he had no more news about Duncan, which was all that either Methos or Cassandra wanted, there wasn't much impetus to the conversation. 

Most of the drive, apart from trivial details of directions, was conducted in silence. Methos seemed to be asleep, but she could not follow his example in such a hostile environment — Amanda kept glaring at her in the rearview mirror, and Cassandra felt a childish urge to stick her tongue out, just to see the reaction. Gods, she wanted this nightmare to be over. One night in Vienna, and then a flight to London and another to Prestwick. Shona's guardian would be there to pick her up, she hoped. She hadn't been able to contact her yet, but she would manage somehow. 

At least they'd passed through immigration control without trouble, and Dawson had booked a good but not extravagant hotel for them. The only difficulty came when Methos baulked a little at the glass doors, his eyes wide with alarm. Amanda and Dawson had already gone in, and didn't notice his hesitation. Instinctively, she put a hand on his arm to calm him, and he looked at her in surprise. "It will be all right," she said gently. 

"Yes. I'm just...." He stopped speaking, and looked at his feet. He didn't seem to be handling things at all well. 

"Yes, I know. Let's go inside." He patted her hand, and then walked inside, with her hand still holding his arm. 

Dawson whisked Methos away into his room, and she was left with a suspicious and not very friendly Immortal woman. Duncan's lover, she remembered, and a jealous one too. Strangely, it seemed to be protectiveness over Methos that was causing most of the bristling. 

To avoid even more of the dark looks, she had retreated to the bathroom to wash the last traces of Ferenc and his dungeon from her body. It was good to no longer smell his scent, which using his soap had forced on her. 

When she emerged, to her surprise, Amanda held out some clothes. "I've got some spares you can wear," she said, standing and offering her the small bundle, her expression now unreadable. The blonde was taller and heavier boned, but Cassandra was just grateful to be able to wear women's clothing again. 

"Thank you," she said, taking them from the other woman, who held on to them briefly. 

"What happened to him?" Amanda asked. Cassandra tugged a little and the clothes were grudgingly released. 

"Ferenc was Kronos' lover — you heard about Kronos?" Amanda nodded sharply. "Ferenc was taking his revenge for Kronos' death. It... wasn't pleasant." 

That earned her another hard look. "MacLeod said _he_ killed Kronos." 

"Yes." 

She looked away and examined the donated clothes — Amanda had even loaned her a pair of panties. She turned and redressed quickly under the bathrobe. 

The other Immortal waited impatiently, and clearly wasn't satisfied with her brief response. "Why would Ferenc think Methos killed Kronos?" 

"Because Methos said he did. Kronos sent him looking for both of us." It wasn't the whole truth, but she and Methos had made their peace over the issue, and it wasn't Amanda's business. 

There was a knock at the door, interrupting the growing tension. Amanda opened it, and Dawson came in. "How is he?" Amanda asked quickly. 

"Asleep. He looks pretty rough." Joe cleared his throat. "Uh, Cassandra. We don't have any clothes or your stuff. I've got things from Methos' apartment, but...." 

She stood straight and proud. "I don't need your help. Let me make a couple of calls, and I can get out of your way." 

"You don't have to run — Methos... he, uh... he seems to want you around." 

"I've invited him to come back to Scotland with me." 

"The hell you have," Dawson growled, his eyes suddenly angry. "Look, lady, you being here when we're here to keep an eye on you is one thing, but no way are you taking him out of our sight. Losing MacLeod is bad enough." 

"I mean him no harm...." 

"Since when?" he challenged, standing toe to toe with her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Amanda subtly alter her posture, readying to defend the mortal. "Last time I heard, you tried to whack him when he was down. You were sure keen to do it when I saw you last year." 

"Things have changed." She forced her voice to stay calm. These were well-intentioned people, and they were probably right to be suspicious of her. 

"Nobody changes that much," he said. 

"He has." 

Dawson stared at her, and then something in his expression relented. He gave her a curt nod. 

"All right. It's his choice, and right now, he's in no shape to move. You wanna tell us what happened to him?" 

She opened her mouth to speak, but then, suddenly, her vision whitened a little. The next thing she knew, Dawson had one of her arms, Amanda the other, and she was being guided to a chair. She held her stomach, vaguely surprised at her reaction. "Here," Amanda said curtly, putting a glass of water in her hands. She gulped it, calming her breathing. 

"Bad, huh? We don't need to talk now." The mortal's voice held a reluctant sympathy she wouldn't have ever expected. She looked up — he wasn't exactly concerned about her, but the hostility was gone for now. He turned to his companion. "Amanda, do you mind sharing your room, or do you want me to book you another one?" 

"I don't mind sharing," Amanda said briefly. The implication that it made surveillance easier was understood but unsaid. 

"Thank you," Cassandra said formally. "You said Methos is not well?" 

"He looks about twenty pounds underweight, if I'm any judge, he's cursing in his sleep, and he flinches if anyone comes near him — does that sound well to you?" 

She was still clutching the glass and she set it aside carefully. "He was forced to suffer, greatly. Some of it at my hands, but not by my wish." She felt so cold, and her stomach cramped. She could control it — she had to. "From the time he disappeared until you found us, he hardly ate, rarely allowed to sleep. It... was not easy, not in any way." 

He hissed in a breath. "Great time for Mac to be AWOL," he muttered, and she couldn't agree more, if only for selfish reasons. She badly missed Duncan, and his strength and his kindness would be very welcome now. 

Dawson addressed her directly. "Look, I know you say things have changed, and you've asked him to go back with you, but he needs his friends now, Cassandra. People who can look after him." 

"Yes, I agree. Have you ever been tortured, Dawson? Did you lose your legs that way?" 

He stared. "No. It was the war, but it was an accident." 

She turned to the younger woman. "Amanda? You have been raped?" 

"No." Her face was white, tense. "Not... not really." 

"Well he has, and I have. By him, among others." 

"So this is your chance for revenge? You must be real happy," Dawson said with disgust, all sympathy gone. 

"On the contrary. None of what has happened gives me any pleasure, it had been nothing but pain and horror. For both of us. My point is that Methos needs someone he can talk to who understands what he's undergone, who won't give him false assurance, who won't be disgusted." 

Amanda stalked over, her face a mask of anger. "Don't you give me that, you damn bitch! You're probably loving all of this. You hate him for what he did — you're the _last_ person on earth he needs!" 

"Very likely." She stood. She felt that her legs were about to fail her, but damned if she'd let them see that. "I think I would prefer to make my own arrangements after all." 

No one tried to stop her and she managed to walk to the door and through it without showing any emotion. She even managed to find the public toilet and shut herself in a cubicle before she heaved, puking bile and water and nothing else up. 

She didn't blame them, not really, she thought, even as she crouched over the bowl shaking uncontrollably. She wasn't entirely sure that if Methos came back to Scotland, her old feelings would not rise and overwhelm her once she resumed her old habits. Perhaps it was for the best. She had nothing in common with Methos, save their great age and their... past. 

She was so tired and weak, and without a penny or any papers on her — stupidly she'd left those in the room. She racked her mind for anyone she could call to help — Shona's nanny might accept a reverse charge call if she could remember the number of the safe house. Yes, that was it — she would find a public telephone. Soon it would all be over. 

Wearily she stood, flushed the toilet, then washed her face and hands. She looked terrible, she had to admit, with her gaunt face and her borrowed, ill-fitting clothes. Perhaps she could convince someone she was a charity case and they might at least feed her. 

The hall was clear and she tried to remember which way the elevators were. She went the wrong direction and had to retrace her steps. Immortal presence washed over her — Amanda? She was still without any weapon. She walked more quickly. 

"Cassandra?" It was Methos, walking quickly toward her, looking anxious. "Please, wait." She stopped but couldn't look at him. He stood in front of her and took her hand. "Joe said you were leaving — you can't, you haven't got your money, or a sword. Let me... let him.... You need help." 

He looked worse than she did — eyes wide and bloodshot in a too-pale face, and he seemed barely able to keep on his feet. "Your friends are afraid for you, Methos," she said more calmly than she felt. "Perhaps they're right." 

"No, they're not." He held so tightly to her hand that it was beginning to hurt, but that registered less than the fear in his voice. "I thought you wanted to help me." 

"I can't help you. I can't help myself. I don't know what I was thinking." 

Still pinning her with his eyes, he brought the hand he was holding, up to his chest. "You can help me. I... think I can help you. They didn't mean to hurt your feelings, let me explain... They don't know you." 

"And you do?" Her voice was choked and she was angry that she could not control her feelings that little while longer that would allow her to descend in the elevator and escape. 

"Better than they do, at least. Please, Cassandra. After all we've endured... let me try to help. Please don't... just leave me again...." 

That broke her, finally, and she turned her face away so he could not see her cry. She would not allow that... but he pulled her close, gently, tentatively, and she let him hold her. "I'm sorry," he said, stroking her hair carefully. "Let me at least arrange your trip home — I won't delay you, I promise...." 

She let him tell her in careful, meaningless detail how he could put her world to rights, send her back to Scotland, arrange for safe passage, restore what had been so brutally taken from her. _But who will restore you to yourself, Methos?_ she wondered. 

She pulled away. "I'll be fine, Methos. I can call Shona's guardian...." 

"Cassandra, you won't be beholden to me, it would be what Mac would want, think of it as being from him...." He was almost babbling, panicking, anxious to repair some of the horrible harm the long weeks had done to them both. 

The emotion in his eyes would melt a harder heart than she could muster now. "Joe and Amanda, they don't trust me." 

"They don't trust _me_ more than fifty percent of the time." He smiled, hesitantly, and she curled her lips a little in response. "Don't go like this," he said again, the smile gone, his eyes pleading. "Not right now." 

"I can't stay, Methos." 

"You asked me to go with you — can I?" 

She thought about her invitation, and it still seemed fitting. "Can you travel now?" 

"Yes. Whatever you want." His words tripped out eagerly, worried, plainly, that she would change her mind. 

"We can go tomorrow, if you want. You need rest, Methos. And more food." 

He touched her shoulder. "We both do. Come back. I will protect you, I promise." 

Three thousand years before, she had prayed to her gods that he would say those very words, and he had not. A coward? Or just a pragmatist? Now he said them, when they were needed again. "I will hold you to that. All right. Let's face them." 

He led her back to Joe's room. His friends were waiting, pursed-lipped in their anger, and she almost ran again in the face of their disapproval. 

Methos' hand tightened on her arm. "Cassandra is staying tonight," he said, in a surprisingly firm voice. "Tomorrow we're leaving, together. If you've got a problem with that, you tell me and we'll both leave now. I'm in no danger from her, and I'm not letting her go alone. Not like this." 

Their eyes widened. Amanda glanced at Cassandra, at Methos, at Cassandra again. Predictably, it was Dawson who responded. "Okay, pal. Don't get worked up." 

"She needs a meal and a good night's sleep, Joe. So do I. Clothes for her, tickets for both of us — Joe, please use my credit card number, whatever you need...." 

The old man waved his request away. "I told you before, I got all that, Methos. Just... you take care of yourself now. Why don't you take the room? I'll get another one. Amanda, let's leave these folks alone for a while." Joe bent and wrote a number on the notepad provided by the hotel. "Here, that's my phone. We'll see you both later. Keep your gun close, Methos. Come on," he said to Amanda, taking her arm. With a final glare, she let the mortal lead her out of the room. 

Methos collapsed into a chair. "Gee, I thought they'd never leave," he said in a shaky voice. 

"Thank you." 

He looked up. "It's the least I can do." 

"Yes," she agreed. "Can we order food? Real food?" 

"If not, I plan to eat the bedspread," he joked. "Would you like me to order? I speak German." 

"Yes... please." 

They retreated behind polite informality and it carried them both safely past the awkwardness. The food was plentiful and good and even though she thought the hunger inside her would never be filled, once again her stomach was full in an astonishing short time. "Leftovers," he said succinctly, as unable to gorge as she was, and pushing the tray away. "I'm sorry, but I'm really tired. Would you mind if I sleep?" 

"No, I'm exhausted too. I've missed a bed." 

He looked at her, saying with his eyes how true those words were for him too. He slipped off his shoes but removed no other clothing, lying on the bed without getting under the covers. He startled when she dropped the spare blanket over him but only thanked her quietly before turning to the wall. 

She eased onto the other bed, and could have moaned with relief. She would like to have undressed but although they had been nude in front of each other for weeks, she felt that the clothes were a necessary armour for them now. 

She suddenly realised why he hadn't even stopped to turn back the covers — it was all too much trouble when all she wanted to do was lie down. The bed was soft and extremely comfortable — sleep came quickly. 

She had no idea how much time had passed — she was warm and weighted lightly when she woke, and she realised the blanket was the same one she'd covered Methos with. She looked down, and there he was, his head at her feet, sitting on the ground, apparently fast asleep, his gun in his hand which rested on the bed. His other hand was curled loosely on her foot, so that he would know if she moved or woke. "Methos? What are you doing?" she called softly, so not to wake him if he was really asleep. 

His eyes snapped open, darting around, checking his surroundings, before coming to rest on her face. "Promised to protect you," he whispered. 

"You need rest, Methos. Go back to bed." 

"Are you sure?" 

"Yes. I don't want my protection to be dead on his feet, after all." That made him smile briefly and he rose with that grace she had always reluctantly admired. "And let me have the gun, Methos. I don't want you having another nightmare and shooting me." He opened his mouth to protest, but then nodded, handing the Glock to her. She put it on the side table, in front of her. "It's okay. He's dead. No one is looking for us any more." 

"No. And I don't think white slavers would fancy either of us at the moment." 

The joke surprised her, and pleased her, in a way. 

He lay back down on the bed he'd been using. He still didn't bother to pull back the covers, but the room was warm, he would not freeze. She didn't offer him the blanket back. She wasn't ready to remove that barrier — nor, she suspected, was he. She smiled to herself. It was enough, for now. 

**Author's Note:**

> Mutable Scars
> 
>  _Copyright Michael Grey 2002_
> 
> Veneer unmarred? Above all, you know better.  
>  Yet smooth flesh conspires. We write anew:  
>  Misconstrued; misinformed; mistaken —  
>  Stark memories redressed in fresher garb.  
>  The wounds, the blood, the willful cicatrix  
>  All denied for the beholder's truth.  
>  Visible or not, our marks are permanent:  
>  Survivor's knack, these mutable scars.


End file.
